Heat 105, Knicks 86: 48 minutes of George Costanza

These losses are making me thirsty

When I was a kid, my dad would get Neapolitan ice cream from the store. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, all in one package. It worked perfectly: my favorite was vanilla, one sister’s was chocolate and the other preferred strawberry. Then one day we encountered Baskin Robbins. 31 flavors. Neapolitan was never the same, or at least we weren’t.

Dante’s hell includes nine circles. That’s a lot of perdition. The Knicks’ 105-86 Game 3 loss in Miami was 31 flavors of hell. And now, with the season in its first real rough patch since early December, a question churns at the heart of this playoff inferno: are the Knicks no longer the same? Or is it we who’ve changed?

The game began like what I imagine the very first Super Bowls were like, when the NFL and AFL champions squared off. Not only had those teams not played each other in the regular season, they were literally from different leagues. They hadn’t seen each other player ever, really. The Knicks came out like a team that had never seen a frame of film on these Heat. Silicon wafers are one-two hundredth as flat as a single hair. New York was flatter.

Led by 10 points from Jimmy Butler, the Heat scored 22 paint points in the first quarter, the most by a playoff team since 2008. An eight-point lead after one exploded to nearly 20 in the second. The Knicks missed their first 15 shots outside the paint; they weren’t gangbusters within the restricted area, either. The Miami bench scored 14 before New York’s scored one. The Knicks finished the half with nine turnovers. They were out-rebounded on the offensive glass. Quentin Grimes even airballed a lay-up. 

The end of the first half marked its nadir. The Knicks had the ball down 14 with about a three-second difference between the shot clock and game clock. They should have held for one last good look, giving them a chance to cut it to 11 or 12 while insuring the gap was no worse than 14. Instead, Julius Randle started to go into a move he had no business trying with way too much time left, leading him to commit a turnover and a loose-ball foul on Kyle Lowry with the Knicks over the limit. After the free throws, they were down 16.

But wait! It gets briefly better, than worse, because what power hath hell without a little hope to grease its wheels? Randle hit a tough 3-pointer to close the half, cutting the gap to 13. Then during the intermission the refs, loathe to make any calls the rest of the night, decided to change Randle’s basket to a two. The Knicks were 48 minutes of George Costanza: every intention miscarried, every instinct misdirected. 

You know how there’s nothing so bad people can’t make it worse? I think that’s what Sartre was on about. As excruciating as this L was to watch, it was significantly worsened by that Mickey Mouse organization known as Disney once again depriving us of Mike Breen on the broadcast and saddling us with Dave Pasch, who kept incessantly updating the Knicks 3-point numbers with every miss. If a team is off all night, it’s fine to point it out at various distant points; a little spacetime between the numbers adds weight to the callback. Pasch was so excited to mention it he sounded less like a play-by-play announcer and more like an auctioneer. “Two of 12. Two of 13. Two of 14. Do I hear 15? 15 misses? 15 going once, going tw—yes! I have 2 of 15! 2 of 15 for the gentlemen from New York.”

Then with about two minutes left in the first half, after the Knicks nearly cut the lead to single digits a couple different times, Pasch said that from the jump they were “never really in the game.” Shortly after the half ended, he marveled that they were “only down 13.” Later he said that the Heat’s first-round 4-1 win over the Bucks was the first time an eight-seed beat a one-seed in five games . . . somehow forgetting the 1999 Knicks, whom he’d talked about earlier in the half.

There are those with the wisdom to use film or data to explain the subatomica of the Knicks’ struggles. I’m not smart enough for that. What jumps out at me is how poorly the Knicks have been shooting threes this series. What jumps out at me is a question: have the Knicks, in one sense, fallen victim to their own success?   

Josh Hart took six 3-pointers in this game; he missed four. In the series, he’s shooting 29% from deep (four of 14). Hart is second in minutes played against Miami, same as he was last round against Cleveland. Since Hart’s arrival, Tom Thibodeau has plugged him right in as a top minutes earner and a closer. Far more often than not, Hart has rewarded that faith.

The deeper you get in the playoffs, the more specific skill sets are needed. Hart is a high-energy jack-of-all-trades. He’s not a lockdown defender, nor a plus shooter. He’s taken on the bulk of the assignment guarding Butler, and – and there’s no shame in this – he’s not stopping him. Hart’s presence on the court means fewer opportunities for other players, some of whom are better shooters. In the playoffs, what you’ve done sometimes matters more than what you’re doing – Grimes has missed nine of the 10 threes he’s taken this series, but the Heat aren’t pulling off and daring him to shoot. 

Hart being on the floor generally means Grimes, RJ Barrett or Immanuel Quickley are off it. In 277 minutes together this year, those three had a net rating of +4. I don’t think that’s enough minutes from which to draw any meaningful conclusions, especially with Quickley becoming the latest player to suffer an ankle sprain. 

If anything, it’s a reminder to stay open-minded, like when Thibs played Randle and Obi Toppin together late in the game – it didn’t spark a revolution, but it did force the Heat to call a couple late timeouts after Knick mini-runs. 

Think of it this way: Isaiah Hartenstein isn’t better than Mitchell Robinson, but there are times Hartenstein is the better option at center, e.g. when the opposing team’s trapping Jalen Brunson aggressively and you want better passers to attack the resulting 4-on-3s, or when it’s late-and-close and your heart can’t endure Mitchell Robinson’s 48% frozen-rope free throws. What Hart brings is invaluable; the Knicks wouldn’t be here without him. They wouldn’t have made it to Game 7 of the ‘94 Finals without John Starks, either. Doesn’t mean they had to let him miss 16 of 18 shots. Something’s not working? Try something else.

Or is asking that question merely a feature of fans’ fickleness? The Hart trade’s earned more than one (hyperbolic, sez me) comparison to the Dave DeBusschere deal. Now I’m already talking about cutting his playing time so some non-All Stars can get more run? I don’t know, man. All I know is what’s worked most of the year clearly isn’t now. The Heat aren’t up 2-1 by chance. They’ve been the better team most of the series. The Knicks don’t look like the same team we’ve seen most of the season. If they don’t change something soon, the series and the season will be over, and they may face potentially more drastic changes.