New York ? After fanning the flames of optimism for more than a year, the great hot air balloon known as the Isiah Thomas regime suddenly is losing altitude and in danger of collapsing in a monumentally expensive and tangled mess.
For the second time in less than 48 hours, the New York Knicks blew a comfortable fourth-quarter lead thanks to the finishing heroics of Chicago Bulls rookie Ben Gordon in the Martin Luther King Day matinee Monday at Madison Square Garden. Gordon scored 13 of his 17 points in the final period, including a high-floating runner from eight feet out on the right baseline with one-tenth of a second left that beat the Knicks, 88-86.
It was the seventh loss in the past eight games for the Knicks (17-20), who dropped into a first-place tie with the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers in the embarrassingly weak Atlantic Division. Instead of gaining momentum against a softer part of their schedule, the Knicks lost to the 3-29 New Orleans Hornets before getting swept in the home-and-home set with the Bulls (17-18), who won their seventh straight and look like the young, athletic team Thomas only wishes he had.
The Knicks play at Toronto on Wednesday and then have an 11- game stretch that includes a six-game trip and eight opponents with winning records. Lenny Wilkens’ job is in jeopardy. So are the Knicks’ playoff chances.
“I feel we will come out of it,” Wilkens said. “We’ll find a way. If we were not playing hard, I’d be concerned. But we were playing hard and gave ourselves a chance to win. We felt like we could win both games (against the Bulls).”
After taking an 84-76 lead on a three-point play by Stephon Marbury (25 points, seven assists) with 3:33 to play, the Knicks missed their last four shots and made only two of four free throws. Most of all, they couldn’t stop Gordon, who scored 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter of the Bulls’ 86-84 win Saturday in Chicago before staging a spectacular encore Monday.
On the winning basket, Gordon ran Jamal Crawford into a pick just above the free-throw line and hit the floater over 6-foot-7 forward Mike Sweetney.
“It’s our last-shot play,” Bulls Coach Scott Skiles said. “It’s not ideal that we want a one-handed runner from the baseline out of it, but he’s so gifted at that shot and has made that little floater so many times this year.”
