Josh Hart directed the blame inward.
He believes the Knicks shot themselves in the foot rather than the Pacers doing anything special.
“We put ourselves in this position,” Hart said Thursday morning at the Knicks’ shootaround ahead of Game 5. “This series could easily have been 2-2 right now, 3-1 us. A couple of mistakes that we made put us in this position.”
There was the epic choke in Game 1, when the Knicks led by 14 with 2:45 left in the fourth quarter.
They went on to become the first team out of 995 in that situation in the postseason to lose in the play-by-play era.
There was the maddening lack of communication defensively in Game 2, getting lost on screen after screen — an issue the Knicks vowed to fix since the postseason began.
There was the turnstile defense in Game 4, allowing the Pacers to shoot 51.1 percent from the field and 40.6 percent from 3-point range.
Still, Hart was adamant that the Knicks didn’t overlook the Pacers or let their guard down after beating the Celtics, even if fans did.
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“During this year and last year during the playoff run — I don’t know if you call it a run, but the playoffs — we want the fans to go out and have as much fun as they can during this time,” Hart said. “This is a time for them to support us, to have fun, and for us to be locked in on the next opponent. So we didn’t overlook them at all because we know what they had and what they bring to the table.
“We knew it was going to be a tough task. But we always want our fans to go out there and have as much fun respectfully and as responsibly as they can.”
