MIAMI – The Knicks needed their clutch hero, but he was in street clothes.
With Jalen Brunson missing his second straight game due to a sprained ankle, the Knicks simply couldn’t convert the big bucket from Monday’s 115-113 loss to the Heat — with Miles McBride and Karl-Anthony Towns combining to miss four potential game-tying shots in the final 20 seconds.
The end of the game fell into disarray when McBride, with the Knicks trailing by two points, launched an ill-advised jumper that missed badly.
Towns picked up the rebound and attempted a putback that was denied by Heat Center Kel’el Ware.
Initially, the officials ruled that Ware was deliberate and the score was tied with 13.2 seconds left.
But a review reversed the decision and the Knicks had two more chances in the final moments that also fell short: another miss by McBride, another missed putback by Towns.
Game over.
Not long before, the Knicks, who had a lead of five in the fourth quarter, lost control by going more than 3 ½ minutes without scoring a point.
As a result, they trailed by 10 with about three minutes left, but fought back behind Towns (22 points, 15 rebounds) and McBride (25 points).
The duo was strong until it failed when it really mattered.
The Knicks were missing two of their best players to injuries, Brunson and OG Anunoby, prompting Mike Brown to go small, while McBride and Landry Shamet started in the backcourt.
It was the first DNP for Anunoby, who strained his hamstring in Friday’s win over the Heat.
The forward is out at least two weeks (but likely longer) and did not travel with the Knicks for their three-game road trip, which continues Wednesday in Dallas before Saturday’s finale in Orlando.
Brunson, who sprained his ankle at the time of last week’s loss to the Magic, is much closer to his return and warmed up without hurdles on the Kaseya Center court on Friday.
Without Brunson, the Knicks offense was less impressive, shooting just 25 percent from beyond the arc.
Mikal Bridges, who finished with 23 points but no points in the fourth quarter, said the Knicks must find a life without their leading scorer.
“There’s not a lot of people in the league that can do what Jalen does, so you can’t really emulate what he does by bringing anyone else in,” Bridges said. “But I think I just play within our game. Jalen is a great ISO player, and not many guys can score like he can. So that’s part of his game. Other guys have their games where it might be a little different. I think we just plug in new guys and do what you do. Play to your strengths.”
The Heat were also shorthanded without Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.
But they had double-digit scoring from seven players, including Norm Powell’s team-high 19.
It was a rematch of Friday’s match at MSG, and a completely different story.
In the first game – a 140-132 Knicks victory – New York’s offense was humming behind beautiful shooting from Towns and Shamet. The Knicks scored 78 in the first half.
Three days later, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra adjusted by throwing smaller defenders at Towns — often frustrating the big man — while Shamet came back down to earth, scoring just 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting from the field.
The Knicks are also another team on the road, where they are 0-4 compared to 7-1 at MSG.
Brown said he tries to install a system without much practice time.
“It’s difficult. Very difficult,” the coach said. “You have to have confidence in your team, and you have to have a pretty good idea of what stage your team is in. When I was an assistant at Golden State, we didn’t need a lot of reps. It was a veteran team that knew what they were doing. When I was in Sacramento, it was a younger team initially and not many of those guys had been to the playoffs. They needed a few more reps. This is similar to the Golden State situation where it was a veteran team, so you look and give them. Sometimes it’s an opportunity to to teach you, but you also have to leverage your coaching staff, and that’s part of the reason why we have a large staff.”
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