76ers miss 5 up-close shots on one trip en route to out-tanking Knicks
Heading into Wednesday’s matchup between the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers, one key question captivated NBA observers everywhere: in a battle of the two worst teams in the Eastern Conference, which pitiful and cratering squad would prove less able to produce functional basketball, and thus more likely to rack up another loss that improves their odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in this summer’s draft lottery?
Well, with sequences like this, we got our answer. Bravo, Sixers. Take a bow.
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And then, when you fall down after taking that bow, get back up, dust yourself off, and fall back down again, and then repeat that a couple more times, I guess. Whatever you do, though, don’t successfully complete the bow.
According to the play-by-play on NBA.com, that was four straight missed Philadelphia layups — one by Henry Sims, two by K.J. McDaniels, one by Furkan Aldemir — that followed a missed McDaniels jumper that had been partially blocked by Knicks rookie Langston Galloway. Five missed shots on one trip in 14 seconds, with four of them coming within eight feet of the basket. Tony Allen himself would be proud.
Really, when it came to having an off night, it was the Sixers’ night. Sure, the two teams combined for just 36 points on 15-for-45 shooting in the first quarter. But while the Knicks were able to get some momentum going in the second and third quarters behind a small amount of shotmaking from the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Jose Calderon and the rookie Galloway, the Sixers kept striving toward the completion of their appointed rounds, managing just 62 points on 33.8 percent shooting to take a 12-point deficit into the fourth quarter.
For a second there, though, it looked like Brett Brown’s club might have forgotten what Philly’s all about these days, ripping off an 11-2 run early in the fourth to cut the New York lead to three and keeping it a two-possession game late. Luckily for Sam Hinkie, though, the game’s deciding possession went the Knicks’ way in a rather improbable fashion, which really means everything’s coming up Sixers:
With just 20 seconds left and New York leading by four, Knicks big man Jason Smith — who’d just received a bullet pass in the paint from a double-teamed Anthony — got his shot packed by Sixers rookie Jerami Grant, the son of former Washington Bullets, Portland Trail Blazers and 76ers forward Harvey Grant. After Grant’s eighth block of the night, though, the ball bounced free to the left corner, where Galloway — on his second 10-day deal with the Knicks after spending the earlier part of this season with the team’s D-League affiliate in Westchester — corralled it, flipped up a shot-clock-beating prayer, and wound up burying a 3-pointer to put the Knicks up by seven with just 15 seconds remaining.
“I had to get one up real quick and it went down for me,” Galloway said after the game, according to Dan Gelston of The Associated Press.
The ridiculous corner triple sealed a 98-91 Knicks win that gave Derek Fisher consecutive victories for the first time since Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, the Knicks’ second and third games of the season. It also improved the Knicks to 7-36 and dropped Philly to 8-34, narrowing the gap between the two conference bottom-feeders to just 1 1/2 games for the East’s bottom spot.
In a game like this, where losing could carry with it the benefit of better lottery odds and winning offers precious little beyond the final buzzer, it’s tempting to think that there can really be no winners. And yet, it’s hard not to feel good for the 23-year-old Galloway, who played four years at St. Joseph’s, and who got to not only start and contribute significantly — 11 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block in 34 minutes — just a short trip from where he played his college ball, but to continue his surprising entry into the NBA world with such a weird, cool, big shot.
I mean, if you can’t keep losing to help the draft odds, at least it’s nice to win like that, right?
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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