We are at the end of the third quarter. Jimmy Butler has just scored a basket with the foul. He celebrates this by making the “and-1” gesture towards his bench. He can afford it: the Heat leads by 20 points, soon 21 with the free throw, against the Knicks.
The affair seems to be off to a bad start for New York. On this action, Tom Thibodeau asks for a “challenge”. The referees review the images and confirm their decision: foul, basket, therefore free throw. The latter is scored by Butler, 62-83 for Miami.
A message for his players
This “challenge” lost by the New York coach could symbolize the third quarter of the Knicks. He is a failure, between missed shots and lost balls. However, it will have an effect by functioning as a message sent to its players…
“It’s a decision that allows you to restart yourself mentally or not,” explains Immanuel Quickley for ESPN. “It’s a decision to continue fighting, to tell ourselves that we have to continue, no matter the situation. I looked at the scoreboard and thought damn it. I understood how far behind we were. Afterwards, I told myself that we had to try for a comeback. »
New York’s awareness could have failed in the next sequence. The Knicks lose another ball, but Isaiah Hartenstein makes the effort to return to defense and counter the Heat’s attempt. In the process, Quickley scores at 3-pts.
“I found that at the end of the third quarter, our defense woke up a little and our activity opened up spaces”Judge Tom Thibodeau. “We stopped, we came back to 14 points and we found momentum. Then we got closer to 10 points. Our defense in the last quarter was very good. »
Heat karma
It was with their defense that the Knicks began to chip away at their deficit, because they continued to lose the ball. The various award-winning baskets from Immanuel Quickley (14 points in the last 15 minutes) obviously did a lot of good in this comeback. “It’s special and it’s a pretty cool feeling”confirms Jalen Brunson.
Jimmy Butler will nevertheless have the winning ball, but his shot behind the arc at the buzzer will not go in. A huge disappointment for the Heat therefore, because letting go of 21 points in advance is always a failure.
“At the end of the third quarter, we are at +20. Then, we lost balls, took bad shots and we didn’t come back on defense.” Erik Spoelstra list. “Suddenly it turned into Quickley’s 3-pointer, over and over again. We were only 13 points ahead. This was the decisive moment. We had the opportunity to go up to +25, like the other evening. But it’s karma, because we were careless at the end of the third quarter. »
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Jalen Brunson | 14 | 35.2 | 43.8 | 47.9 | 87.0 | 0.7 | 2.7 | 3.4 | 5.1 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 1.9 | 24.2 |
| Rj Barrett | 9 | 29.6 | 45.4 | 49.0 | 83.3 | 0.7 | 3.1 | 3.8 | 2.9 | 2.2 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 20.8 |
| Julius Randle | 14 | 34.7 | 37.8 | 27.6 | 67.0 | 2.1 | 7.9 | 10.0 | 5.3 | 3.1 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 2.8 | 19.5 |
| Immanuel Quickley | 14 | 24.7 | 44.6 | 34.7 | 89.4 | 0.3 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 3.4 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 15.4 |
| Donte Divincenzo | 14 | 21.0 | 41.9 | 38.0 | 64.3 | 1.0 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 8.9 |
| Quentin Grimes | 12 | 24.7 | 39.5 | 36.2 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 1.8 | 7.4 |
| Josh Hart | 14 | 28.7 | 41.4 | 29.5 | 71.4 | 1.1 | 5.1 | 6.1 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 1.8 | 7.1 |
| Mitchell Robinson | 14 | 29.8 | 57.7 | 0.0 | 38.5 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 11.6 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 1.9 | 6.6 |
| Isaiah Hartenstein | 14 | 16.7 | 56.7 | 33.3 | 65.2 | 2.4 | 2.4 | 4.8 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 2.8 | 6.0 |
| Evan Fournier | 1 | 15.6 | 16.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| Miles McBride | 11 | 4.8 | 47.1 | 30.8 | 50.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 1.9 |
| Daquan Jeffries | 6 | 2.9 | 37.5 | 25.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 1.2 |
| Dylan Windler | 3 | 2.5 | 50.0 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Jericho Sims | 7 | 2.9 | 66.7 | 0.0 | 33.3 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.7 |
| Ryan Arcidiacono | 5 | 2.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
