Even with their roster hurting and their available players somehow dwindling further, the Knicks cut into what had been a 23-point hole and climbed within seven points during Sunday’s third quarter.
They essentially were done in by turnovers on three consecutive possessions in the period, two by Miles McBride sandwiched around one by Jalen Brunson just before he departed with a fractured left hand in their season-ending 130-109 loss to the Pacers in Game 7.
“That’s the thing. Our margin of error is really tight,” Tom Thibodeau said. “The defense, the rebounding, the turnovers … obviously the defense wasn’t there. The rebounding, we fell short.
“The turnovers were low [with eight for the game], but we had the costly ones in the third quarter. We had a small window to crawl back into it. It was seven and then you have two bad possessions and that changes things. … Sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
Donte DiVincenzo’s 3-pointer had drawn the Knicks within 77-70 with 6:43 left in the period, but errant passes by McBride and Brunson and then a five-second call against McBride on an inbounds pass led to a trey by Myles Turner, a layup by Tyrese Haliburton and another bucket by Aaron Nesmith to help stretch the lead back to 19.
“Huge. For a team that runs off makes/misses, turnovers, it gave them a lift and we just couldn’t fight back,” McBride said.