Mike Woodson owned up to it all when the Knicks’ latest debacle was over on Monday night.
He blamed himself when his players didn’t foul when they had a foul to give in the last seconds of their jaw-dropping 102-101 loss to the Wizards at the Garden. And then Woodson took the fall when they didn’t use a timeout before Carmelo Anthony half-heartedly put up a final prayer that was not answered at the buzzer.
Woodson deserves a lot of the blame, of course, because here again was an example of when the Knicks’ leader apparently doesn’t communicate particularly well in the heat of the battle. We don’t remember any of this kind of trouble last season when they won 54 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs.
But they’ve had a few of these disturbing mental lapses in defeats this season when the coach and his players haven’t been on the same page. One notable screwup came against the Rockets in a three-point loss when Anthony didn’t follow orders and fouled Dwight Howard. Iman Shumpert had another bone-headed play, fouling Indiana’s Paul George on his 3-point attempt that got the Pacers into overtime in a game Indiana won handily in the extra session.
What happened against the Wizards was even worse as everything imploded in the last 6.9 seconds and the Knicks are now 7-17. It’s not as if they can afford these kinds of defeats, especially against a team like Washington that came in with a losing record, had lost four straight games and had not won at the Garden since December 2006.
Tyson Chandler is coming back Wednesday in Milwaukee if all goes well in his five-on-five contact practice Tuesday. Because of his track record, his presence certainly will help matters on the back line and in matters of communication.
But on Monday, he was dressed in a suit and sitting on the bench, exhorting his teammates to make one more stop, when they didn’t even come close. In a mismatch of the first degree, the Wiz’s Bradley Beal found himself on the wing with only Beno Udrih between him and the basket.
Forget the Knicks taking a foul. They weren’t even watching what was unfolding as Beal, in his first game in three weeks, showed that his right leg has fully recovered from a stress fracture.
“There was absolutely nobody even paying attention,” said Beal, who had 14 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter. “So I just drove it and I had a wide-open layup.”
John Wall couldn’t believe how open Beal got on his drive.
“Nobody was back there,” he said. “Tyson will help them when he gets back, because he’s been the Defensive Player of the Year.”
But in that situation, the breakdown was inexcusable. Beal should have been grabbed before he went on his game-winning foray that helped break the Wizards’ 10-game losing streak at the Garden and prevented the Knicks from winning back-to-back games for only the second time this season.
“We all knew we had a foul to give, but we didn’t use it,” Woodson said.
Why not?
Nobody knew or was saying. But that’s been a troubling theme to a season that continues to go to hell before Jim Dolan’s eyes.
“We were very aware, we talked about it in the timeout,” J.R. Smith said. “We just have to do a better job as players in that situation to take the foul. We all knew.”
Just as they all knew they had three timeouts after Beal’s shot to huddle up, get a play set up and then try to win this game at the gun. That’s one approach, of course. There is also a school of thought that says that it’s just as sensible to not call a timeout, thereby preventing the defense from being able to get set up.
The way it all unfolded on Monday night, you can certainly argue that Anthony did the right thing by not calling a timeout. The Knicks had their best player with the ball in his hands and he had made 12 of 19 shots to that point. But Anthony didn’t really go all-out against Trevor Ariza and Wall before desperately launching a 25-footer that missed and was followed by a loud round of boos.
“I probably should have called the timeout at the end,” Woodson said. “But the ball was in Melo’s hands before I could even react. That is on me.”
He didn’t get any arguments from Anthony.
“Mike’s taking the heat,” he said. “If he said it’s his fault, it’s his fault.”
To a point. How much is for people to decide. People like Jim Dolan.
