INDIANAPOLIS – Maybe the pain killers wore off after the first quarter. After that it was the agony of defeat for the Knicks along with their bad feet.
On a night Patrick Ewing made his way back to the lineup, the Knicks nearly ran the Pacers out of the gym in the first quarter, forging a 32-17 lead. The Knicks then
got five flat tires as they suffered a dreadful 88-79 loss to a team that is not nearly as good as they.
On this night the Knicks lost an 18-point lead. That’s a bad omen if you think back to the Miami series when the Knicks came back to win Game 6 after trailing by 18. Without their running game, Larry Johnson, the latest Knick to suffer a foot injury, was not nearly as effective as he was in the three previous games, missing six of his eight shots. Latrell Sprewell, playing with a broken bone in his left foot, mis-fired on10 of his 14 shots.
Johnson said his foot felt pretty good, but when he was asked if Sprewell is hurting more than he is letting on, LJ said, “I think so. But he’s a warrior. This is playoff time. The trainers are doing a hell of a job getting you ready so you can withstand the pain and go out there and play.”
Ironically on Tuesday Allan Houston was only trying to answer a question, but he didn’t know how true his words would ring. Someone asked if the Knicks would want to slow it down in any way against the aging Pacers. Houston laughed.
“We never want to slow it down with this lineup,” he said of the new QuicKnicks. “We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot.”
That’s exactly what they did last night to fall behind 3-2 in the series. Houston, whose left ankle is still giving him much pain, made 10 of his 20 shots to lead them with 25 points while Ewing and his sprained right foot hit his first three shots, but made only two of his last seven.
Now the team with sore feet will have to duplicate their Miami fete and win Game 6 at home tomorrow night and Game 7 on the opponent’s floor, (Jose) Conseco Fieldhouse, a place they have never won before, just like AmericanAirlines Arena – until Game 7.
The Knicks let Sam Perkins, who is even older than Ewing, turning 39 next week, and Mark Jackson, who is 35, beat them. Perkins buried two huge 3s while Jackson backed down Charlie Ward and Chris Childs and after every score threw the sign of the cross in their face, a la Johnson’s Big L.
When Jackson came out that’s when the Knicks were hurt by Travis Best, who finally got his game together, scoring 24 points, six more than the entire Knick bench.
All those sore feet couldn’t help the Knicks get rebounds as they were outscored 21-7 on second-chance points. Center Chris Dudley, who played an effective role in Game 4, picking up five rebounds in eight minutes, three on the offensive end, did not play even though Jeff Van Gundy moaned about lack of rebounding.
In Van Gundy’s world there is no room for spot players like Dudley unless someone is out with injury.
The road was swift in the first quarter as the Knicks came out blazing, hitting their first eight shots. Then they scored all of 23 points the next two quarters, including an eight-point second quarter, the lowest second quarter in NBA playoff history and the Knicks’ worst playoff quarter ever.
Ewing’s foot injury had turned out to be exactly what the Knicks needed to get this series back even after losing the first two games, games where Ewing started. The Knicks are 1-4 over the last two playoff years against the Pacers in games Ewing has started and 5-1 when he didn’t play.
Van Gundy believes it is asinine to think Ewing should not be the focus of the offense. Jeff may want to pull his foot out of his mouth this morning, but he will stick to his low-post guns.
This has become the series of the foot. Pacers center Rik Smits has been hobbled by foot injuries throughout his career. Last night he was hobbled by his own pathetic inability to drop the ball in the basket from two feet. Larry Bird, though, made the coaching adjustment and got Smits out, limiting his wacky center to 12 minutes.
Before the game the Knicks revealed that Johnson is battling his own foot woes. He has plantar fasciitis of the right foot. That is the same injury that originally hobbled Ewing and then became a sprained tendon. When the LJ injury was announced, a Pacer official, who was standing nearby, laughed.
The Pacers might think all this injury stuff is plantar facetious.
There is no denying the Knicks’ feet and pride are damaged. Worst of all, they’re really not sure in what direction their feet should be going – running full speed or at a halfcourt cadence. They had better make up their mind fast.