The ball left Joel Embiid’s hands just as the final buzzer groaned at Madison Square Garden, just as 19,812 witnesses who’ll all be voiceless Tuesday morning tried to steer the ball sideways. Embiid is terrifying at all times, even on one leg; now he was all that stood in the way of ruining one of the most thrilling Knicks playoff endings you’ll ever see.
The Knicks were dead. They were down five with under 30 seconds to go, and it had sounded like someone kicked a plug out of the wall at the Garden. They’d fallen behind 9-0 quick, then they’d blown an eight-point lead midway through the fourth. The 76ers were going to steal this, pilfer home court. All they needed to do was dot the I’s and cross the T’s.
“At that point,” Josh Hart would say, “we had nothing to lose.”
Now, after a messy possession, the basketball somehow found itself in Jalen Brunson’s hands in the corner. He shot-faked. He sidestepped, landed maybe half a centimeter outside the 3-point line. Brunson: the Knicks’ rock all season, and on this night incapable of buying one, missing 21 of his first 28 shots.
It sure looked like he missed his 29th, too, but somehow the basket at the Seventh Avenue end of the Garden turned into the friendliest rim at your neighborhood Y. It was 101-99. There were 27 seconds left.
“You need good fortune,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau would say. “Sometimes, the bounce goes your way.”
The Sixers inbounded. Tyrese Maxey — an absolute marvel all night, 35 points, five 3s — was trapped. Sixers coach Nick Nurse yelled at the referees, trying to call time. He didn’t get time. Maxey tried to pivot out. Brunson and Hart wouldn’t let him.
Of course, it was Hart — 35 seconds into his 48th minute of the game — who plucked the ball away. Knicks ball.
Thibodeau: “He gives the team toughness, real toughness. That’s a big part of the fabric of this team.”
Donte DiVincenzo missed a 3. Another scramble at the Seventh Avenue end. Of course, it was Isaiah Hartenstein — 14 points, eight rebounds four blocks, another essential piece of that fabric — who somehow came down with the rebound.
“We don’t give up,” Hartenstein would say. “There’s a lot of teams that might give up in that situation but we don’t. It starts with [Thibodeau], who won’t let us, but the whole team buys in.”
DiVincenzo got the ball back.
This time he splashed it.
Knicks by one.
“We had a belief we could come back,” Hartenstein said. “And we did.”
They did. The Garden detonated, sounded like the inside of Metallica’s amplifiers. The place was still full, even at the end, even after the Knicks had been buried just a few seconds earlier. Now, it shrieked in disbelief at what it had just seen at the Seventh Avenue end, site of so much heartache across the years, the place where Charles Smith missed all those layups, where Patrick Ewing’s finger roll slipped off the rim.
Now the place where the Knicks had finished off one of the impossible comebacks you’ll ever see. Maxey missed a drive. Back on Seventh, OG Anunoby made two free throws. And then one last gasp, one last gulp, as Embiid let it fly from about 28 feet. And winced as it bounced harmlessly away.
Knicks 104, 76ers 101. Final.
Here came the bedlam. In years to come when you talk about this game — and you will talk about this game plenty in the years to come — you may forget the details. You won’t forget the way the foundation shook when DiVincenzo hit his shot, or how it shivered again when Embiid’s shot missed.
“I never think the games are over,” Thibodeau said.
Of course, neither is the series. There are concerns that’ll trail the Knicks south on the Turnpike between now and Thursday’s Game 3. They had no answers for Maxey, who was ill but was still magnificent across 44 brilliant minutes. Embiid was Embiid, battered and bloodied and still good for 34. Brunson is shooting 16-for-54. The Knicks know they could just as easily be down 0-2 as up 2-0. And Philly will be waiting for them.
Probably feeling as confident as Embiid postgame: “We’re gonna win this series. We know what we have to fix and we’re gonna fix it. We’re the better team.”
We’ll see. For now, the Knicks own the hammer. They got another wondrous game out of Hart, the Iron Horse, 21 points and 15 more rebounds. Bojan Bogdanovic came off the bench again and swished a pair of fourth-quarter 3s.
“You never know whose night it going to be with this team,” said Miles McBride, who followed his breakout Game 1 with 21 solid minutes in Game 2.
You know one other thing, too. Hang on till the end. Hang on till the final buzzer. Sometimes the bounces really do go your way.
