Knicks frustrated as lapses on defense put them in 2-0 hole - ESPN

NEW YORK — One game after the New York Knicks blew a historic playoff lead with three minutes to go and lost, they had a chance to make some magic of their own Friday.

Down 10 points to the Indiana Pacers with just under three minutes to play, Jalen Brunson and his team chipped away, trimming the deficit to just one in the final 20 seconds.

But ultimately there wasn't enough magic for the Knicks. Brunson misfired badly on what would have been a long, tying 3 with eight seconds to go and the Knicks slipped 114-109 at Madison Square Garden to fall into a 2-0 hole in the Eastern Conference finals.

The series heads to Indiana for Game 3 on Sunday night.

Even with the comeback, Brunson and the Knicks spent most of their postgame interviews talking about how their lack of focus on defense did them in.

«Obviously they do a really good job of moving the ball and forcing you into mistakes, and we have to be more sound defensively to guard the first action, second action, but also the third action,» Knicks wing Josh Hart said. «We're down 0-2, and now we're going to a tough place to play — Indiana — so we've got to go and fix it. We can't have blown coverages, no matter how late it is in the shot clock.»

Hart said the team's defensive breakdowns late in the game were especially costly because they happened while the Knicks tried to mount their comeback.

«In the playoffs, a lot of games are determined by a possession or two,» he said. «Two games in a row, we [made those mistakes]. We've got to figure it out.»

The Knicks had no answer for Indiana's Pascal Siakam, who exploded for 39 points on just 23 shot attempts, and they also struggled to defend the 3-pointer, with the Pacers making 13 of 30 attempts (43%).

For the second game in