Call It a Miracle as Knicks Stun the Pacers, 92-91

Both the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers have spent considerable amounts of time talking about the officiating in this Eastern Conference finals, so it only made sense that a referee’s call was the focal point of an unusual game-winning play Saturday night.

The short-handed Knicks beat the Pacers, 92-91, in Madison Square Garden and lead the best-of-seven series, two games to one. Larry Johnson buried a three-point basket to tie the score with 5.7 seconds remaining, then went to the free-throw line for the winning point courtesy of a dubious foul called on Antonio Davis.

The Knicks came out of a timeout after Indiana’s Mark Jackson made two free throws to put the Pacers ahead by three with 11.9 seconds left. Indiana’s Jalen Rose tipped the inbounds pass, but Johnson grabbed it on the left sideline, in front of the Indiana bench.

Davis bought a pump-fake, jumped and extended his arms when he came down. He pushed Johnson in the waist, but Johnson still had time to drift to his left before he took his shot, untouched by Davis on the way up.

The whistle blew, then the ball went through the net. The basket counted.

“Tough call,” Jackson said.

“I was a little surprised,” said Indiana Coach Larry Bird, putting it mildly. “I thought he would get two free throws.”

Johnson, of course, thought Jess Kersey called it perfectly.

“I was in the act of shooting,” said Johnson, who finished with 26 points. “I didn’t dribble it. He fouled me after I dribbled the ball, so, it was a good call.”

If there was any consensus between the two sides, it’s that the play had no precedent in their memory.

“Something I have never seen before, continuation like that,” Indiana center Rik Smits said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a four-point shot or four-point play that ended the game,” New York Coach Jeff Van Gundy said.

Up until the final seconds, things had gone almost according to form. If there were two areas in which the Knicks were expected to miss Patrick Ewing (who will miss the rest of the playoffs with a partial tear in his left Achilles’ tendon), it was in the matchup with Smits and in late-game possessions.

As it turned out, Smits scored 25 points and the Knicks struggled to get good shots down the stretch.

Somehow the Knicks managed to claw back. Despite two turnovers and five missed shots in the last three minutes, New York managed eight points--half of them on the last play.

The Pacers went cold in the final four minutes, missing their last five field goals to let an eight-point lead slip away.

“I thought we did a good job hanging around,” Van Gundy said. “I thought that was the biggest thing. Basically, they outplayed us for most of the game.”

It wasn’t pretty basketball, but any ball was better than the incessant whining about the officiating that sandwiched the news of Ewing’s injury during the three-day interlude between games. It began immediately after Game 2 and continued through Van Gundy’s pregame chat with the media Saturday night.

Smits spent the first two games in constant foul trouble and fouled out of both, producing a total of 18 points in 39 minutes. He nearly matched his point production for the first two games during a 3 1/2-minute stretch in the second quarter.

He scored 15 consecutive points for the Pacers in the second quarter, taking them from a seven-point deficit to a two-point lead.

Now, if the Pacers can just find a way to get Reggie Miller untracked.

He hit the winning free throws in Game 2 (the Knicks had issues with the call, of course), but Saturday he didn’t get a chance to touch the ball on the last possession.

The Knicks swamped him and forced the Pacers to go to Jackson, who fumbled the ball and forced up a tough shot just before the buzzer.

Miller managed only nine shots for the game and finished with 12 points, plus the irony of watching such a memorable play in the Garden.

“I’m usually on the other side of that,” Miller said.

Later, he said, “I feel my moment will come.”

If it doesn’t get here soon, the Pacers could be out of the playoffs.