Skidding

The Knicks dropped their third straight.

Good morning to everyone except the f—-ing Miami Heat.

Game 75: Knicks 99, Heat 109

A totally normal basketball action.

In a New York minute…

New York got off to a cold start from the field while the Heat were scorching the nets from deep, leading to a 12-point advantage after one. Terry Rozier was an offense unto himself in the first half, and more Knicks scuffling gave way to a 15-point halftime deficit. The Knicks fought back in the third, cutting the lead to six before Miami counterpunched to go back up by a dozen, but a 12-0 Knick run over a five-minute stretch in the fourth tied the game at 92. From there though, the Heat scored on their final seven possessions while New York ran out of gas, giving them their third straight loss.

Three Things

1. Slow start. At the risk of sounding like David Fizdale (“I know we got outscored by 47 points in the first, but we won the next three quarters…that’s progress!”), last night was a case of the Knicks failing to dig out of an early hole.

In the final three quarters, they outscored Miami by two points, hitting nine threes to the Heat’s 10 and besting Miami 49.1 percent to 47.3 percent from the field.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t make up their first quarter deficit, thanks mostly to a big discrepancy from behind the arc (7-for-13 for the Heat; 3-for-11 for the Knicks).

It’s hard to separate that early deficit from the results of the last two games. As Mike Breen said on the broadcast, you have to winder if the last two losses took some of the wind out of their sails.

Either way, the early hole was too much to overcome, even against the offensive challenged Heat.