The New York Knicks have become unstuck in time.
The other night, the team of which I am a fan made some of the most baffling time-related basketball decisions I've ever seen, which, luckily, were summed up by Seth Rosenthal at Posting and Toasting. Read what he wrote, but suffice it to say: it was pretty mystifying.
They might have surpassed themselves Wednesday night as they allowed a game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the worst team in the league in terms of record, to progress into an inexorable double OT. (They'd win in double-OT, but still.)
Once again, they found themselves in a perfect situation to go two-for-one, winning a jump ball up two with 38.7 seconds to go in overtime. This would have been helpful, since this would have limited the amount of possessions the other team would have -- and therefore, opportunities to score -- to one, while having two possessions.
They did not. They called timeout, setting up a Carmelo Anthony shot with 16.9 seconds. He missed. However, because Tyson Chandler is a golden god whom we should all worship, he got an offensive rebound. Seeing someone in a blue jersey open, he passed to Andrea Bargnani, knowing that with a two-point lead and the shot clock off, the Bucks would be forced to foul, virtually ending the game.
Andrea Bargnani did not wait for them to foul.
All his teammates realized the mistake:
Bargnani, who is shooting 29.3 percent from three, decided the good call would be to jack up the shot instead of waiting for free throws. (I mean, he probably didn't decide that. He seemed to figure out he did bad pretty quickly.) Of course, he missed, giving the Bucks a chance to tie the game, which they did, on a John Henson tip-in with .3 seconds to go.
The Knicks exhibited more misunderstanding of how time works by attempting a catch-and-shoot jumper with Anthony in the last .3 seconds of the first overtime (you have to attempt an alley-oop or tip-in with .3 seconds or under, thanks to Trent Tucker, but that's less inexcusable.
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