If Patrick Ewing wants the ball so much, Jeff Van Gundy had a solution to how he can get it more: Grab an offensive rebound or two.
How about five. Ewing led the rebounding barrage by hauling in 18 as the Knicks outboarded the Heat for the first time in the series, 46-41. He hauled in five offensive rebounds that he converted into six of his 15 points.
“I thought everybody got in there and rebounded,” said Ewing, who didn’t have a single offensive board in Game 5. “They were beating us in the series on a lot of long rebounds. The guards did a better job of those.”
Following yesterday’s morning shootaround, Jeff Van Gundy again went on at length about the team’s horrendous rebounding – a season-long problem that’s grown worse and was ready to become their season-ending epitaph. They were outrebounded by 40 in the first four games.
The Knicks responded in a big way, crashing the glass in last night’s Game 6 victory. Latrell Sprewell added nine rebounds and Allan Houston chipped in five. Both have been faulted for their lack of rebounding in the series while the Heat perimeter players have been chewing glass.
Both Ewing and Marcus Camby each had big offensive boards down the stretch. Ewing jammed home a Chris Childs miss with 1:57 left.
“Down the stretch, they got two huge offensive rebounds that made the difference,” Alonzo Mourning said. “We got a little bit complacent and stopped doing the things we needed to get the lead.”