On the day after, Jeff Van Gundy wasn’t talking about “miracles” or “prayers” or “Hail Marys.”
Van Gundy was talking about accountability. The Knicks coach said his team got what it deserved Sunday – a 95-94, overtime loss in Miami that all but eliminated them from catching the Heat for the Atlantic Division title and all-important No. 2 seed in the NBA playoffs.
Even though the Knicks would have prevailed had Heat guard Tim Hardaway not connected on a miraculous, desperation, 3-point chuck from the hip at the buzzer in overtime, Van Gundy said the Knicks didn’t play well enough Sunday to beat an elite team on the road.
Responding to Patrick Ewing’s postgame remark that the Knicks did everything they could to win, Van Gundy differed.
“One of our players said we did all we had to do to win,” Van Gundy said before the Knicks hosted the Pacers last night. “I think just the opposite. We did all we could to lose in the fourth quarter and yet we still, with one stop, could have won the game. We had seven turnovers in the fourth quarter, two in overtime, and still had a chance to win.
“The positive of what I take from the game is that if we would’ve won the game, we would’ve had a false sense of where we need to be heading,” Van Gundy said.
“We got what we deserved for how we played in the fourth quarter. There was a lot of talk from [Miami] that it was destiny. It had nothing to do with destiny. It had to do with we didn’t play the way we need to play to beat a good team playing very well.”
So how the Knicks responded to the Hardaway hangover was going to be interesting. There were plenty of excuses for not giving their all last night – some of which Van Gundy listed on the locker room board in candid prose.
Van Gundy wrote in black magic marker that the Pacers needed the game more, the Knicks were playing the fourth game in five nights and the Pacers and Heat are “uncatchable.”
Asked if it will be tough to motivate the Knicks for the rest of the regular season, Van Gundy said, “If it is, we have the wrong guys and then we’re not going anywhere anyway. We can improve over the next 10 days and I want their mindset on that because we need to improve.”
So what exactly is left for the Knicks to play for across these final six games, other than getting their game right before the playoffs. Ho-hum.
That’s the hard sell for Van Gundy. Miami’s victory Sunday ended any realistic hope the Knicks had of winning the Atlantic and gaining a No. 2 seed, which would have assured them of having homecourt advantage for the first two rounds.
The Knicks entered last night’s game vs. No. 1 Indiana trailing the Heat by three games. They would lose the tiebreaker, too, because Miami won the season series, 3-1. The Heat’s magic number is three to clinch the Atlantic.
The third seed means the Knicks likely won’t have homecourt for the second round and Eastern Conference finals, although Van Gundy, putting a positive spin on it, said: “That’s saying that everyone will win that’s ahead of us. Any of the top five, six teams in the East can go to the Finals.
“You would like to be where Indiana sits and have homecourt all the way through. That’s not our reality. With that ball going in [Sunday] night, it made those two teams virtually uncatchable for us but it should do nothing to deter us from our long-term goal.”
In all likelihood, the Knicks, with their third seeding, will face a potential first-round matchup vs. Toronto. The reeling Raptors have slid to the sixth seed. Although they are playing poorly, they could give the Knicks headaches in a first-round matchup because neither Latrell Sprewell nor Allan Houston have shown they are capable of guarding Vince Carter or Sixth Man of the Year frontrunner Tracy McGrady.
The Knicks play in Toronto Friday in a good litmus test since they’ve lost two straight to the Raptors.
Van Gundy talked about holding off any comers for the third seed as motivation but unless they totally collapse, that’s not happening. The magic number for clinching third seed is three games – another factoid Van Gundy put on the white board. The fourth-seeded Sixers trail the Knicks by three games and would lose a tiebreaker because the Knicks won the season series 3-1.
There is still a shot of the Knicks facing Charlotte in the first round – a better matchup than Toronto. The No. 5 Hornets would have to fall behind the Raptors, but Charlotte leads by one game.
Meanwhile, looking ahead to the second round, the Knicks could actually face Indiana instead of Miami in Round 2. The Heat entered the night just one game behnd the Pacers for top seed in the Eastern Conference.
