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No guarantees Knicks must endure another season without title
Posted: Friday June 02, 2000 11:20 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Despite the guarantees, there will not be a return to the NBA Finals for the New York Knicks. The latest season to end without a title finished Friday night when the Indiana Pacers pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 93-80 victory in Game 6. The loss in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals means no repeat trip to the NBA Finals for the Knicks, who won their last championship in 1973. It also added a non-title year to the Patrick Ewing era. New York's center since the 1985-86 season was one of the players who guaranteed a win that would send the series back to Indiana for a Game 7. "I'm very proud of my teammates," Ewing said. "I think we worked extremely hard. The outcome doesn't show all the work and effort and the energy we put to get back to the championship. I thought we worked hard. We deserve to be there, but I guess it wasn't our turn again." Ewing and Latrell Sprewell had the sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden thinking there would be that deciding game when they combined to score all but two of New York's 21 points in the third quarter when the Knicks turned a 50-41 halftime deficit into a 62-62 tie. Sprewell, who had nine points in the third quarter, opened the fourth with a 3-pointer that gave the Knicks a 65-62 lead, their last as Reggie Miller led the Pacers on a 10-0 run. New York was never closer than four points the rest of the way. "I don't know if we ran out of gas," Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "I think we played extremely hard. I just think we got outplayed. I think it is very simple." Both Ewing and Sprewell fought through injuries in the series as did teammates Marcus Camby and Larry Johnson, but that wasn't enough as Miller scored 17 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter. "It's going to be difficult to accept for a couple of weeks while others are still playing games," Sprewell said. Sprewell finished with 32 points, while Ewing had 18 points and 12 rebounds. Only Allan Houston, with 10 points, was also in double figures for the Knicks, who had won Games 6 and 7 against Miami to advance to the conference finals. "You're going to face elimination games as you go along in the playoffs unless you're a dominant team," Van Gundy said. "Indiana faced theirs against Milwaukee and got through it. We faced two against Miami and got through it. Certainly you would rather play with a cushion and be ahead. Playoff basketball is about responding to whatever situation you're in. This isn't about anything except they outplayed us tonight." Sprewell said the elimination games did make a difference. "The Miami series took a lot out of us," he said. "It took a game or two to switch gears and get ready for Indiana. "Last year, in every game I can think of at least two guys were playing well. This year, minus Game 3, it seemed only one guy was carrying us." This was the Knicks' team-record 13th consecutive postseason appearance. In that span there have been four trips to the conference finals and two to the in the NBA Finals -- a seven-game loss to Houston in 1994 and last season's five-game loss to San Antonio. The sellout crowd was the 347th in a row at the Garden and the usual array of celebrities was on hand. All those people and the Knicks left again without a title. Van Gundy was asked what his message was to the team after the game. "Not after the game. It's not the appropriate time," he said. "We will get together Sunday, talk briefly and move on."
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