With 19 seconds left and the Knicks trailing 96-93, Carmelo Anthony grabbed a rebound off a missed layup and sauntered upcourt, nearly parallel to coach Derek Fisher and referee Mark Lindsay. Fisher, perhaps seeing Anthony take too much time off the clock, gestured towards his sides with his hands, a symbol for calling a timeout, to try to reset his team’s offense.
But Lindsay, despite clearly seeing Fisher’s gesture, did not grant the timeout. Anthony, despite standing within earshot of Fisher, didn’t call one himself or slow the pace. Instead, Anthony walked up to about 27 feet away and hoisted a potentially game-tying three-pointer with a hand in his face — and missed, sealing the loss for the Knicks.
The YES Network play-by-play crew of Mike Fratello and Ian Eagle were on the scene, and said on the broadcast they could clearly see and hear Fisher call the time-out, and that “it appeared that Mark Lindsay heard him, he turned his head, but did not blow the whistle.” Fratello added that it doesn’t have to be a player making the time-out call. “He wanted the time-out well before Carmelo took that shot.”
Had Fisher gotten a time-out, who knows what he would’ve drawn up — probably another Carmelo Anthony three-point look. But now we’ll never know, and the Knicks go home with another loss, bringing their record to 4-15 on the season.
