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#Knicks final shot WAS a set play, but turned into a forced shot. Woodson explains and JR's admission are all here:
Woodson drew up a final play that involved lots of action away from the ball (several screens at the top of the key) once JR Smith had it in his hands with just over seven seconds left in the game. If you take a look at the photo posted here (courtesy of @Geeeeemen, who sent it to me via Twitter) you can see Smith had plenty of space to make a move to the basket and then react to the defense accordingly.
He had Amar'e Stoudemire near the high post for a dive if help defense arrived. But the play never got that far. Smith only looked to the clock, never to his teammates to see if anyone had gotten open.
"We didn't get guys to fire off like they should have," Woodson said of the final play. "Once he actually caught it, he looked up at the clock when he caught it and faced. He could have just gone [to the basket] because [the Thunder defense] was plugged into their guys."
Woodson said Smith "could have ripped-through and went to the rim."
Instead, Smith settled for two fakes and a contested fade-away from 20 feet, the most difficult of any option he had available (aside from a skyhook, I guess).
"I really should have went to the basket," Smith said afterward.
"It was well-executed," Stoudemire said of the final play. "We just missed the shot."
Smith had been cooking through three quarters, with 31 points. But in the fourth, with length defenders Thabo Sefolosha and Kevin Durant on him, Smith went 2 for 9, including 1 for 5 from downtown. On the final play, he had Russell Westbrook on him.
Smith had buried two buzzer-beaters this season in Charlotte and Phoenix. Both were on fall-away shots.
"He's made a couple of those that have won games for us going that way," Woodson said.
This would have been a good one to steal, especially without Carmelo Anthony, but while Smith got the Knicks to the end, he couldn't finish it.
"It was a high-scoring night," he said of his Knick-high of 36 points, "but id doesn't mean anything coming out with a loss."
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