The New York Knicks got nostalgic at the worst possible time.
The Knicks' last advancement victory at Madison Square Garden was a series best-remembered for Larry Johnson's famed four-point play against the Indiana Pacers in the 1999 Eastern Conference Finals.
Horrific deja vu surfaced in Game 5 of the conference quarterfinals on Tuesday night, when the Knicks lost postseason advancement and a six-point lead to the Philadelphia 76ers in just about 20 seconds. Most of the deficit was erased on a Tyrese Maxey three-pointer that led to a successful and-one earned via a foul on the shot by Mitchell Robinson. Maxey's extra point proved to be a turning point, one that commenced a 22-10 run that extended into an overtime period that ended with a 112-106 victory in the Sixers' favor.
“I’m just going to take it like a man ... I f***ed up," a somber Robinson said in the aftermath, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. "I’ve just got to play him straight up. I wasn’t in a ready position to guard or anything like that. I f***ed up.”
Robinson has now been involved in two pivotal foul calls in the Knicks-Sixers series, neither of which has truly gone his favor. He was granted flagrant free throws when Sixers star Joel Embiid pulled him down by his ailing ankle in Game 3 in Philadelphia, but that didn't stop fans in Knicks circles from calling for Embiid's ejection via flagrant two.
The Embiid encounter flared up an injury that cost him 50 regular season games as well as the fateful fourth showdown with the Sixers that seemed to permanently shift momentum toward the Knicks' corner. Robinson seemed poised to play hero mere minutes before his fateful foul: his defense forced Embiid into a 7-of-19 night from the field and nine turnovers, the last of which came when he turned a punch out into an OG Anunoby fastbreak dunk that put the Knicks up five in the penultimate minute.
Now, the Knicks are going back to Philadelphia on Thursday (9 p.m. ET, MSG/TNT), only hoping that a new opponent is waiting for them back home afterward.
"(I'm) trying to find a groove and then have to worry about that," Robinson said in Bondy's report. "Playoff intensity is way different than the regular season. So (I) have to find something and stay with it.”
More must-reads: