Inside the NBA: What happened on critical final play of Game 4?

The New York Knicks may ultimately win their first-round series against the Detroit Pistons in five games. But no matter what happens going forward, the Knicks will have some battle scars. This series has not been without pain or adversity.

There was both pain and adversity in Game 4 in Detroit on Sunday afternoon, but the Knicks proved to be the tougher team in a 94-93 victory that came down to the final possession.

Jalen Brunson (32 points and 11 assists) and Karl-Anthony Towns (27 points, nine rebounds) led the way once again, both making some huge shots down the stretch. The Pistons had a chance in the final seconds, but Cade Cunningham (who recorded a triple-double) missed a good look for the tie and Tim Hardaway Jr. missed a contested corner 3 for the win.

After the game, crew chief David Guthrie told a pool reporter that, on Hardaway’s attempt, a foul should have been called on the Knicks’ Josh Hart.

Here are some notes, quotes, numbers and film as the Knicks took a 3-1 series lead…

1. Knicks’ offense comes up big in the fourth

The first three games of this series were determined on the Knicks’ end of the floor, where they scored 121.7 points per 100 possessions in their two wins and just 94 on 97 (96.9 per 100) in their Game 2 loss.

Game 4 (94 points on 95 possessions) broke that pattern, but it was also determined on the Knicks’ end of the floor…

• As they blew all of a 16-point lead, the Knicks scored just four points on a stretch of 17 possessions spanning halftime.
• In coming back from an 11-point deficit early in the fourth quarter, they scored 30 points on 16 possessions.

Brunson (15) and Towns (eight) scored 23 of those 30 points, but Mikal Bridges (who ranked second in corner 3-pointers in the regular season) also hit a pair of huge 3s from the right corner.

With the Knicks down 11 and a little more than eight minutes left, Hart drove the left baseline with just five seconds left on the shot clock.

Bridges has been very good in this series at moving without the ball and creating passing lanes for teammates in tough spots late in the clock. And as Hart drove, Bridges relocated from the right wing to the corner, draining a tough 3-pointer over Cunningham …

Four possessions later, Bridges got another 3-pointer from the same spot on a simple baseline out-of-bounds play.

The Pistons had some better looks than that, but were just 1-for-8 from the corners, now 11-for-39 (28%) on corner 3s in the series.

2. Brunson, Towns earn their money in big moments

Both Brunson and Towns have had defensive issues in this series, and on the Pistons’ final two possessions, the Knicks’ two stars were taken off the floor in favor of more capable defenders (Miles McBride and Mitchell Robinson).

But Brunson and Towns more than made up for any defensive issues with incredible shot-making down the stretch.

Brunson seemingly reinjured his right ankle late in the third quarter, needing help to get back to his feet and to the locker room. He’s had those scares in the past, but the Kia Clutch Player of the Year almost always finds a way to return and make big plays.

“I realized that I just needed to readjust and make sure that I was mentally ready to go back in the game, because I was going back into the game,” Brunson said. “There really wasn’t a doubt, regardless of whether I was stumbling or not.”

Brunson didn’t need much help getting his shots in the fourth, as he was just fine rejecting screens or just playing one-on-one against whatever Detroit defender was in front of him …

His first clutch bucket was a tough, wrong-foot bank shot against Dennis Schröder. Next possession: An iso, stepback 3 against Hardaway.

Two possessions later, the Pistons were scrambling after Schröder got switched onto OG Anunoby in the post. Brunson skipped the ball across to Towns, who drained an open 3-pointer from the right wing.

That got Towns going, and after the Pistons went back up four with 1:52 left, he put the Knicks ahead with two ridiculous shots, both coming late in the shot clock.

First, a turnaround jumper over Duren and from behind the backboard …

And on the next possession, a stepback 3-pointer from several feet beyond the arc, putting the Knicks up one with 46.6 seconds left.

Detroit’s defense wasn’t bad down the stretch on Sunday — Brunson and Towns were just too good.

Brunson and Towns have combined to score 33 of the Knicks’ 37 clutch points in this series, shooting an amazing 11-for-16 on shots with the score within five points in the last five minutes.

3. Thompson, Holland struggle on offense

The Knicks’ string of 30 points on 18 possessions in the fourth quarter (and the end of a six-possession drought) began with Brunson getting past Schröder for a short floater in the paint. Ausar Thompson has defended Brunson at the start of games, but Schröder has been the guy in front of him most in the fourth quarter.

Brunson has looked very comfortable when being defended by Schröder. He’s averaged 13.3 points on 63% shooting (with eight assists and only one turnover) in the fourth quarter in this series.

A big issue for the Pistons is that Thompson hasn’t given them much offensively. The Knicks have been sagging off him to protect the paint, and he hasn’t been able to take advantage.

The second-year forward checked in with 9:42 left in the fourth quarter on Sunday. He then had a couple of ugly offensive possessions and was replaced by Tobias Harris.

First, he got the ball late in the clock, isolated against Mikal Bridges, and missed a contested floater badly …

On the next possession, Thompson caught the ball on the move and immediately threw it out of bounds.

Rookie wing Ron Holland II has had similar issues. The Knicks have left him alone on the perimeter, and he’s been unwilling to shoot open 3-pointers.

Early in the second quarter, a Cunningham-Jalen Duren pick-and-roll resulted in a wide-open, weak-side look for Holland, who shot 24% from 3-point range in the regular season. But instead of shooting, he tried to drive against Hart, losing the advantage the Pistons had gained.

There was no lane to drive through, Holland tried to force the ball back to Duren, and the shot clock eventually ran out …

Holland is 7-for-8 from the line in this series, but he’s 0-for-3 from the field, with five turnovers in 29 minutes.

In the playoffs, you need guys that can hold up defensively while not hurting you on offense. The Pistons were one of the most improved teams on both ends of the floor this season, but still may be a player or two short in that regard … or until Holland and Thompson get up to speed offensively.

4. Josh Hart is everywhere

It was Hart who committed the foul that wasn’t called on the Pistons’ final play and it is Hart who is seemingly in the middle of every random play in this series.

The Knicks’ glue guy filled the box score in Game 4, finishing with 14 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Hart is the guy that’s going to be left open on offense, and in a game in which the Knicks needed all the offense they could get, he made more 3-pointers on Sunday (3-for-5) than he’d made through the first three games (2-for-4). The last of those came late in the shot clock in the third quarter, ending that Knicks stretch of four points on 17 possessions.

If there were a “Best Nose for the Ball” award, Hart would probably win it. On the Knicks’ final possession of the first quarter, he grabbed two offensive rebounds, leading to a third-chance corner 3-pointer from Towns …

Hart is unafraid to stick that nose where guys his size might prefer not to venture. Twice on Sunday, he stripped Duren after the Pistons’ big man grabbed a rebound. After the Knicks took the lead in the final minute, Hart helped off Harris in the corner to strip Cunningham, Detroit’s final turnover of the night.

“That’s what Josh does,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said afterward, “and they’re always timely plays, whether it’s an offensive rebound, a defensive rebound in traffic, a hustle play where he just comes up with a loose ball, a strip.

“He’s everywhere.”

5. Pistons keep making unforced errors

In all four games in this series, the Pistons have committed more turnovers than the Knicks, with the differential on Sunday being 19-10. That’s a brutal stat for the losing team in a two-point game, and the Pistons’ 19 included five in the decisive fourth quarter, as well as one on the inbounds play to start the second.

Not all of the turnovers have been unforced and the unforced errors haven’t been limited to the guys in uniform.

Midway through the first quarter, Duren threw an ill-advised, cross-court pass that was intercepted by Bridges. After Anunoby missed a layup in transition, a loose rebound bounced out of bounds.

The officials gave the ball back to the Knicks, but Cunningham asked Pistons’ coach J.B. Bickerstaff to challenge the call. Bickerstaff obliged, a bad mistake.

The call was upheld, but the result doesn’t even matter. Bickerstaff should have kept that challenge in his pocket for a few reasons …

1. The ball wasn’t obviously off the Knicks.

2. It was a low-leverage call.

3. There were almost 43 minutes left in the game.

No. 2 may be most important. If the challenge was successful, the Knicks wouldn’t have lost any points and the Pistons wouldn’t have gained any. It wasn’t a shooting foul. Heck, it wasn’t a foul at all, so Bickerstaff wasn’t keeping any of his players out of trouble with the challenge.

The uncalled foul on the last play of the game isn’t something that could have been reviewed, so Bickerstaff didn’t miss an opportunity on the highest-leverage play of the game. But again, it’s more about the process than the result.

A couple of years ago, the Knicks spent the summer studying the challenge system, which calls are most likely to be overturned, and when challenges are most or least effective. Since then, New York has been one of the best teams at challenging calls.

The Pistons might benefit from a similar study.

Unfortunately, they have less than 52 hours between the end of Game 4 and the start of Game 5 on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT), when their season will be on the line.

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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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