NBA

Woody: Amar’e was open for layup

There was so little time for J.R. Smith to react. He got the ball with less than three seconds and flung.

But Smith admitted if he had a do-over on the fateful game-ending miss against Washington on Friday, he would have dumped it inside to Amar’e Stoudemire.

Smith can’t be faulted for his action — almost anyone would have done the same after recovering a Carmelo Anthony fumble. But coach Mike Woodson, following a film review, had to wince when he saw Stoudemire “naked” under the basket.

“It was :02.6 when he let it go and Amar’e was sitting naked under the bucket,” Woodson said. “So what are you going to do? You drop it off, he lays it in and it’s game over. He had enough time.

“[After Smith] saw the tape, that’s when he realized it. But we’ve just got to keep pushing.”

Woodson said Anthony was not the choice to shoot. He hoped to repeat the success from an earlier play that resulted in a Raymond Felton 3-pointer.

“So I figured if you put it back in Melo’s hands and you run the pick-and-roll again — I knew they were going to trap him — I wasn’t looking for Melo to make the play to shoot the ball,” Woodson said. “I was looking for him to make the play to pass the ball, either to Amar’e rolling — and if they took Amar’e on the roll, you had shooters around him to make a shot. But it just didn’t unfold that way.”

Anthony’s nine turnovers Friday were not a career high, but they were his high as a Knick — with Denver, he committed 10 turnovers on Nov. 21, 2006, against the Bulls. He also had nine twice as a
Nugget in 2010 — against the Trail Blazers on April 1, 2006, and later that month on April 25 in the playoffs against the Jazz.

Just like the Knicks were after losing to the Wizards, the Heat still were stinging from losing in overtime to the Timberwolves on Friday, a night when the Pacers also lost. But like the Knicks, they turned to the task at hand — which happens to be the Knicks.

“We can look forward to Sunday now,” Chris Bosh told the Fort Lauderdale SunSentinel. “We would have liked to have won [Friday]. We just have to push the reset button to refocus ourselves.”

And just like the Knicks, the Heat see a string of teams who are fighting for something in the playoffs, whether a bid or higher seed.

“I don’t think we need to play teams that are battling for playoff position to get us ready,” LeBron James told the paper. “We’re going to get everyone’s best shot every single night and we just have to be ready for it.”

Woodson knows that feeling.

“Every team we’re playing has something [at stake],” Woodson said. “Miami is trying to secure the No. 1 seed so everything goes through them. Toronto is trying to win their division. Chicago could probably be jockeying a little bit. And Brooklyn is right there jockeying too. So every game is important.”

Anthony smiled to a underwhelming gathering of three reporters Saturday morning when he was asked about his aching shoulder — about 11 hours and one Knicks walkthrough after he had been asked about his aching shoulder Friday night.

“No different than last night,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to [say] how it stacks up right now. I didn’t come out and do anything. We had just a walkthrough this morning.”

The Hawks (33-42) have seven games remaining, four at home (Detroit, Boston, Miami, Charlotte). On the road, they face Indiana on Sunday, the Nets and Milwaukee. The Knicks (33-44) have the Heat on Sunday, Toronto and the Nets on the road plus Chicago and Toronto at home.