On Friday in Cleveland, Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving drove to the basket and was knocked face first into the floor, breaking a bone in his jaw.
Last night at the Garden, wearing a protective mask, Irving darn near drove the Knicks right through the floor in an attempt to snap their home-court perfection.
But despite Irving’s brilliant, career-best 41-point effort, the Cavs came up one point short as the Knicks survived when Anderson Varejao muffed the second of two free throws with 1 second left.
The Knicks went to 10-0 at home with a 103-102 victory, an utter sweat job because of Irving.
“I was just doing what I need to do and just being aggressive down the stretch, aggressive enough for the shots to go in,” said Irving, last season’s Rookie of the Year, who torched the Knicks for 17 points in the last 5:23 of the fourth quarter, eight of them in the final 27.3 seconds when he made like Reggie Miller and nailed a pair of 3-pointers.
Irving, who played his fourth game after missing 11 with a broken left index finger, admitted he was tempted to take the last shot. But the Knicks doubled to get the ball out of his hands.
“I knew once he crossed halfcourt, they were going to [double-team],” coach Byron Scott said after his Cavs fell to 0-8 in the second game of back-to-backs. “He did the right thing, throw it to the open guy.”
Unfortunately for Cleveland, the open guy, Varejao, is a career 62-percent free-throw shooter.
“There’s always temptation there, but I have the ultimate trust in my teammates and Andy made a great play, got to the free-throw line, gave ourselves a chance to win,” Irving said.
Afterward, Irving said he made three trips to Varejao’s locker.
“Just telling him it was OK. The second shot looked better than the first one. For it not to go down, it hurts,” said the New Jersey product Irving, who said “being so close to home, it was that much more special.”
Irving has suffered three broken bones in five months. He broke a bone in his right hand during the summer league. He broke the finger. Then he broke the bone in his face.
“I don’t see him as being, as people would say, injury-prone or anything like that,” said Scott.
That’s not what people were calling him last night as he shot 15-of-25 (5-of-8 on 3-pointers) and set the standard for most individual points against the Knicks this season, topping the 33 hung up by Houston’s James Harden.
“Phenomenal,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said.
“Amazing,” Varejao said.
“One of the best point guards in the league,” raved Knicks counterpart Raymond Felton.
With 24 points already, Irving started the fourth quarter on the bench trying to get a rest. He only had four hours of sleep, he noted. A CT scan after Friday’s game found “a small left maxillary fracture.” He was fitted for a protective mask and didn’t get to New York until 4:45 p.m. yesterday.
“I look like the Dark Knight with it on,” he said.
But the Knicks were threatening to run away, and Scott was forced to reinsert Irving with the Cavs down nine with 9:29 remaining. And from 5:23 on, it was his show — until he came up one point short.