A Royal Pain: West's Worst Kings Rally Past Knicks in Overtime

Sacramento Kings guard Jimmer Fredette (L) at Madison
Square Garden in New York, N.Y. (Photo: Jon Wagner,
February 12, 2014)

NEW YORK -- Closing the disappointing pre-All-Star portion of their season, the New York Knicks seemed poised to head into the NBA’s annual mid-February break on a good note, especially after building a couple of double-digit home leads against the worst team in the Western Conference.

However, the Knicks (20-32) not only coughed up those advantages, they also lost a five-point lead over the final 1:26 of regulation, before falling to the Sacramento Kings, 106-101, in overtime, at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.

Nevermind that the Kings (18-35) were just 6-19 on the road, had lost the first three contests of their four-game road trip (including a defeat in Cleveland the night before while New York was playing two days of rest), or that Sacramento entered the night with a seven-game road losing streak and losses in 10 of 12 and 12 of 15 games overall.  

The Kings still managed to overcome deficits of 13 points in the opening quarter and 12 in the third period behind the efforts of three 20-point scorers, with forward Rudy Gay (9-for-22 shooting) and point guard Isaiah Thomas (6-for-17; team-best seven assists) scoring exactly that many points to complement a career-best 24 points off the bench from Glenn Falls, N.Y. native Jimmer Fredette, who made his first six shots and 9 of 14 overall, including 6 of 8 from 3-point range.

“I was aggressive,” Fredette said. “I saw the first couple of shots go in, a couple floaters, and then the basket looked a lot bigger. I was able to get some open looks and make shots.”

On having his breakout game back in his home state, Fredette added, “It’s awesome. It’s the greatest arena in the world. I had a lot of family and friends here… it’s a special feeling, a special night, but hopefully more nights to come… hopefully I can continue to gain more of a role, more minutes. This is the most minutes I’ve played in a long time.  Usually I don’t play that much, but hopefully, I’ll continue to grow.”

Center DeMarcus Cousins (19 points, game-high 14 rebounds) nearly gave Sacramento a fourth 20-point scorer, as reserve forward Derrick Williams (14 points) was a fifth King to score in double figures.

New York, which lost for the fifth time in six games, treated the Garden crowd to something rare that Knicks fans hoped they’d see on a regular basis over the past few years -- the trio of forward Carmelo Anthony (36 points on 12-of-28 shooting; 11 rebounds), center Tyson Chandler (17 points on 8-of-12 shooting; 11 rebounds) and forward Amar’e Stoudemire (20 points on 10-of-15 shooting) leading the way with strong games on the same night.

Injuries though, particularly to Stoudemire, have derailed that collective production from coming to fruition on a regular basis, as Stoudemire has been relegated to coming off the bench instead of starting alongside Anthony and Chandler as part of what New York had once thought would be the best starting front line in the league.

With Stoudemire playing nearly 37 minutes as a reserve, the threesome demonstrated that type of promise as a group, but the six other Knicks who played totaled just 28 points on 11-for-35 (31.4 percent) shooting.

Logging a game-high 48 minutes, Anthony also missed his final six shots, including all five in overtime.  

Overall, New York made 14 of its first 19 shots while turning a 5-5 tie into its biggest lead, 33-20, before settling for a 33-22 edge after the opening quarter.

But Fredette, a former college star who has underachieved as a pro thus far, reminded the Kings of the player they thought they were getting when they traded for him right after the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Fredette 10th overall three years ago.

Playing the whole second period after sitting out the entire first quarter, Fredette scored the first seven points of the second period and then added eight more, to already eclipse his season-high with 15 points (on 6-of-8 shooting), during a 26-8 run that gave the Kings a 46-41 lead.

“Jimmer Fredette changed the game tonight,” said rookie head coach, former Knicks assistant (2001-05) Mike Malone, a Queens, N.Y. native. “I give him credit. This hasn’t been an easy season for Jimmer and I realize that. At times, his playing time (11 minutes per game this year) has been a little inconsistent. But one thing I’ve been telling him lately, and I sent him a text the other night, is that I still believe in him… it was about to be a 25-point game… and his ability to get us back into it was huge… we don’t win this game without Jimmer.”    

Losing for just the fifth time in 23 games when leading at halftime this season, the Knicks closed the half on a 13-2 spurt to lead, 54-48, at the break.       

A 10-4 run to start the third quarter quickly pushed the lead to 64-52, but an 18-8 answer by Sacramento closed the gap to just 72-70, and the Kings stayed within 74-72 going into the final period.

“It happened so fast,” Anthony said. “I can’t put my finger on exactly what happened. I looked up and we gave the lead up. The next thing I knew, we were going into overtime.”

After building a four-point lead six different times during the fourth quarter, New York went up, 93-88, on a Chandler layup with 1:41 left in the period. But Fredette, who played all but six seconds of the last period while leading all scorers with nine points, on 3-of-6 shooting, in the frame (after sitting out the third period), drained a 3-pointer 15 seconds later. Gay then tied the game, 93-93, on a pull-up, 16-foot jumper with 20.8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

Addressing his benching in the first and third periods, Fredette acknowledged, “That’s just kind of my rotation. I come in the second quarter and the fourth quarter, in the beginning [of each]. A lot of times, I only stay in until the six-minute mark and then I come out… A lot of times I’ll come out earlier, but I was able to stay in because I played well. It felt good to get extended minutes and to help the team win.”

Anthony, who had 17 points (on 7-of-9 shooting) in the first period, but 19 thereafter, had a chance to win the game, but a shot from the same distance missed with 1.6 seconds left.

With the Knicks missing their first six shots of overtime, the Kings, who led for good on a Gay 3-pointer 44 seconds into the extra session, led by five points on three separate occasions before a Williams jumper put Sacramento up, 104-98, with 32.9 seconds to go.    

Rookie reserve guard Tim Hardaway, Jr. (seven points), who missed his first eight shots before finishing 3-of-4, cut the lead in half, to 104-101, on a 3-pointer, but a Thomas jumper with 7.9 seconds left sealed the win.  

Following another head-scratching loss, head coach Mike Woodson’s job security could be even more precarious over the All-Star break. But with New York still just 2½ games out of the eighth and final spot Eastern Conference playoff spot, chances are that Woodson will retain his job this season as long as his team stays within striking distance in that chase.

Team owner James Dolan said just before the season started, that he expected the Knicks to win an NBA title this year. However Dolan also loves to pocket playoff money, and even settling for a quick first-round exit makes keeping Woodson attractive at least for the short term, unless New York falls out of the playoff race.

Another thing that’s been saving Woodson’s job is the consideration given to injuries, and Woodson, already without key reserve guard J.R. Smith (fracture cheekbone), lost starting forward Iman Shumpert (eight points in 22 minutes).

That caused Woodson to match up with Hardaway in ways he didn’t want to.

“When Iman went down, that hurt, because we had a bad matchup problem with Timmy playing at the 3 spot, so I had to go big,” Woodson said. “We had built our lead playing small ball with Melo at the 4 and I couldn’t get back to it.”

Of course, Woodson could have played forward Metta World Peace at the 3 position and returned Anthony to the 4 spot, but he gave somewhat contradictory reasoning as to why World Peace didn’t play, when he said World Peace didn’t play because he hadn’t been playing much earlier -- even though that was due to Woodson’s own decisions not to play World Peace much of late.

Reflecting on the Knicks’ record relative to their 32-18 mark at last year’s All-Star break, en route to their division-winning record of 54-28, Anthony admitted, “I didn’t expect us to be in the situation that we’re in right now. If somebody would have told us that before the season, I would have [bet] any amount of money that they were lying.”

Remaining positive, though, Anthony added, ““We got to put this behind us and use these next couple days to kind of reboot, recharge, get ourselves together, get our minds right and come back ready to make a push.”

Before that, Anthony will head to New Orleans where he will start for the East in Sunday night’s All-Star game, his seventh. He’ll represent New York along with Hardaway, who will participate in the Rising Stars challenge featuring the NBA’s best rookies and sophomores.

Asked if New York’s rough season will put a damper on trying to enjoy the festivities, Anthony said, “Mentally, yeah.”

Candidly, he added, “Just knowing how important this game was for us to start the break off… so it’s going to be tough to kind of get into everything that’s going on but once I get down there, see friends, see family, kind of not think about this for a couple days, maybe it’ll change.”

When Anthony and Hardaway return New Orleans, their Knicks will face four straight road games and 8 of 10 away from home, beginning with a game at Memphis on February 18.

Jonathan Wagner covers the New York Knicks, New York Giants and New York Mets as a contributor for Yahoo Sports, where he was named one of Yahoo’s Top 100 Contributors for 2013. Jonathan also covers the Knicks, Hofstra University men's basketball and the 2013 NASL champion New York Cosmos as a credentialed writer for New York Sports Day. Follow him on Twitter, @JonathanJWagner.