The Knicks were still basking in the glow of their first victory of the season, allowing them to dream of an actual winning streak. Then came last night, a 101-89 collapse that served as both a bucket of cold water in their collective faces, and an ominous warning with LeBron James & Co. looming tomorrow.
The same team that had hung a 40-point fourth-quarter on the Hornets was held to just 15 by the Pacers. The same club that couldn’t miss on Monday couldn’t buy a basket down the stretch, missing its last dozen shots. In short, all that good mojo left the Garden faster than a Hideki Matsui longball left Yankee Stadium.
“We had an opportunity a couple times to put them away and let them back in it. The second half they just outplayed us. . . . They kept fighting and they played harder than us,” said point guard Chris Duhon. “We know if we play with the same energy [tomorrow] a lot of us are going to be sitting down at halftime, because they’re going to blow us out. We don’t want to be embarrassed.”
The Pacers shut down Duhon’s trademark pick-and-roll with David Lee, and the Knicks either turned the ball over vs. Indiana’s small lineup or just couldn’t get by them. They built a nine-point lead, but blew it when they stopped moving the ball, settling for jumper after ill-advised jumper, having taken just four foul shots with 9:04 left.
No Knick suffered a harder fall from Monday than shooting guard Larry Hughes, who followed a stellar 20-point, six-rebound effort with a seven-point, five-foul dud, missing eight of his 10 shots.
“We had some lineups out there we hadn’t played with. It was poor execution on both ends of the court, offense or defense,” said Hughes. “I don’t think we took a step back, but we need to realize we need to execute 70 percent of our sets.”