Each game of a dramatic, unpredictable first-round playoff series between the No. 3 Knicks and No. 6 Detroit Pistons has ended with its own twist. Game 5, a 106-103 Knicks loss at Madison Square Garden, came down to a decision — and the coach’s call was not to call timeout.
“It’s tough,” said Jalen Brunson, the NBA’s newly minted Clutch Player of the Year, after watching the final moments unfold from the sidelines. “But I have the utmost faith regardless of the result in my teammates. Whoever is out there: trust, faith, belief, all that. I’ll always have that with my teammates.”
The Knicks arrived at The Garden with a 3-1 series lead and a shot at closing out a playoff series on their home floor for the first time since 1999. They built a 16-point first-half lead, then saw it erased. The Knicks fell behind by 11 in the fourth quarter, then lost both Brunson and Josh Hart to injury in a two-possession span down the stretch.
“We didn’t know when they were coming back, if they were coming back,” said head coach Tom Thibodeau. “So that’s part of it.”
Hart went to the locker room. Brunson turned his ankle and limped to the bench with 2:57 left in regulation. A minute later — with the Knicks trailing by six after a Cade Cunningham floater — both walked to the scorer’s table, ready to check back in.
But with only one timeout remaining and four team fouls, Thibodeau faced a dilemma. Intentionally fouling would send the Pistons to the line, risking an eight-point deficit with less than two minutes on the clock. Burning the final timeout would leave the Knicks vulnerable in the event of another dead ball situation.
“You look at the time, score, penalty, timeouts, all of the above, what’s happening in the game, the next possession,” Thibodeau said. “We’re weighing — there’s a lot that goes into it.”
Thibodeau didn’t foul. He didn’t call timeout. The coach instead opted to wait.
“[Intentionally fouling is] tough because you’re not trying to foul,” said Hart. “We got stops, we got good looks. Like I said, I trust my guys. Wasn’t our day today. We’ll regroup, watch the film, learn from it. Then we’ve got another one on Thursday.”
Nearly two-and-a-half minutes of game time ticked away before Thibodeau used his timeout with 27.4 seconds left in regulation. When Brunson and Hart checked back in, the Knicks were still in a six-point hole, only there wasn’t much time left to do anything about it.
The Knicks were chasing a game that had gotten away from them.
“Obviously that’s tough. You want to be out there,” Hart said. “But we had good looks. I trust my guys. We had a couple good shots to cut that lead. They just didn’t go in. It’s basketball. It happens.”
And with that, the Pistons walked out of Madison Square Garden with new life — and trimmed the Knicks’ series lead to 3-2.
Brunson, whose 21 crunch-time points ranks atop all playoff performers, did not score in the final five minutes of Game 5.
“It’s different. [When Jalen’s playing], you know he’s going to have that ball,” said Mikal Bridges. “It doesn’t mean we can’t step up. I should’ve made shots and held it down for him as much as he holds it down for us. We just got to be better.”
Bridges and OG Anunoby made timely threes to make it a 104-103 game with seven seconds left on the clock, but with Brunson and Hart watching a pivotal stretch from the bench, their last-second flurry came up just short.
Now the pressure shifts back to Detroit, where the Knicks must win Game 6 to avoid facing a do-or-die Game 7 at The Garden.
“You want to win every game. If I had my way, we would’ve swept them. If they had their way, they would’ve swept us,” Hart said. “We’re not looking at it that way. Just got to make sure we focus on fixing the mistakes we had today and going to Detroit ready to go.”
Thibodeau took ownership of the late-game miscalculation.
“Just coach’s decision,” he said. “The challenge is to reset. Every game is different. Take a look at the film, see what we do better, be ready to go the next game.”
“It is tough. Regardless of how we feel tomorrow, we have to turn the page,” Brunson. “I think I said this before, if it’s a win or loss, it’s short-term memory because you have to come out and figure out what you have to do to win the next one.”
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