By Any Means Necessary

The Knicks escaped.

Good morning! That was far dicier than we expected…

Game 58: Knicks 113, Pistons 111

In a New York minute…

Any plans the Knicks had of a cakewalk win against the 8-48 Pistons were dashed early on, when former top pick Cade Cunningham got off to a career start from the field en route to a perfect shooting 20-point half. Even so, New York maintained a lead for most of this game even though they could never push their advantage to a comfortable margin. Sure enough, Detroit made a fourth quarter run behind former Knick Quentin Grimes, who scored all 14 of his points in the final frame, including the go ahead layup with 27 second to go. From that point forward, chaos ensued, with the ball ultimately ending up in Josh Hart’s hands with just seconds remaining for the winning basket.

Three Things

1. Balance in the Universe. Exactly two weeks ago, I wrote in this space that the Knicks got robbed by one of the worst calls you will ever see in a professional sporting event.

Well, sports has a funny way of evening the score.

Here’s the thing though, and it’s why no one should lose an ounce of sleep over how the Knicks won this game: even though, like in the Rockets game, the head ref admitted afterwards that they made an incorrect call that could have changed the outcome of the game, this is not an apples to apples comparison.

For one, in the Houston loss, the refs blew a whistle they had no business blowing, assertively handing the Rockets free throws that they didn’t deserve. Here, there was a foul call that they missed, committed when Donte DiVincenzo made an aggressive play for the loose ball after his own turnover. Bodies were flying, and it was a bang-bang play in what had been a very physical game throughout.

More importantly, at that point, the Knicks were still losing with under five seconds to go. It took Jalen Brunson finding Hart under the hoop, and then Hart converting a high degree of difficulty shot to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

In that sense, while the refs undeniably lent New York a helping hand, the Knicks still needed to accept the gift - a gift that was only given because of their refusal to give in and accept a loss.

Hart’s initial steal of Fontecchio was ruled legal

The real shame in all this, of course, is that the closing moments are all this game will be remembered for. For the prior 47 minutes and 40 seconds, these teams were battling for every inch in a game that wasn’t always pretty but featured high level shot-making at both ends and no lack of effort by either squad.

On that note…