Cold-shooting Knicks drop Game 1 to Heat

Jalen Brunson stared at the boxscore, alone on the podium with none of the comedy acts that had marked the celebratory first-round postgame scenes.

“Today I was horrific,” he said. “It’s very uncharacteristic by me. This one’s on me. I got to be better, and I will be better.”

He certainly wasn’t horrific and he wasn’t alone in taking or deserving blame. There were fingers to point all over — mostly at the three-point shooting — after the Knicks saw what started as a celebration at Madison Square Garden on Sunday turn into a 108-101 loss to the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series.

With Patrick Ewing in the front row and stars in the stands from the days when Knicks- Heat postseason meetings were an annual occurrence, this game promised to be a hard-fought battle. But in throwing the first punch, it was the Heat who showed the toughness.

They hung in through the raucous atmosphere and forced the Knicks into shots that didn’t fall. And with their heart-and-soul leader Jimmy Butler suffering a sprained right ankle in the fourth quarter, they never considered taking him out of the game.

“We were expecting this game to be like this,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s going to be a cage fight. It’s clean, competitive basketball. We have great respect for the Knicks: how they play, how they operate and how they compete. They jumped on us in the first quarter because they do good things and they’re very aggressive. But we just were able to hang in there and understand this long game.”

The Knicks were without Julius Randle (sprained left ankle) and seemingly without their shooting touch, finishing 7-for-34 from three-point range. After an early attack from RJ Barrett, Miami closed down the paint and dared the Knicks to shoot over them.

Barrett rode an early burst to a 26-point performance, but the Knicks squandered an early 12-point lead. Brunson had 25 points but was 0-for-7 from outside the arc and had five turnovers.

“Inside the three-point line, I was pretty efficient,” he said. “Outside the three-point line, I was terrible. They’re a good team, great defense, well- coached, experienced. So you gotta give them credit, but for me, I gotta be better.”

“I’m sure they made adjustments,” Barrett said. “They took the intensity a little bit, played hard, they made shots. We didn’t. From watching [Miami’s first-round] series and playing them throughout the course of the year, they’re never going to give up. That’s one thing I personally enjoy about this series, that it’s going to be hard-fought. It’s going to be tough. You have to go out there and take it.”

Butler went down and stayed down with 5:05 left and Miami clinging to a three-point lead. The Heat called timeout and the national television audience went to a commercial, but when the game returned, there Butler was at the foul line. He finished with team highs of 25 points and 11 rebounds.

With Butler clearly hobbled, hiding in the corner on offense and trying to tough it out on defense, the Knicks were unable to take advantage, but he’d already done his damage.

It seemed like an ominous sign when on the Knicks’ first possession of the game, Butler ripped the ball away from Brunson, but the Knicks turned the rest of the first quarter into a highlight reel on offense. Barrett provided the early boost — shooting 5-for-6 in the quarter — and nearly lifted the roof off the Garden by finding Obi Toppin for a fast-break lob dunk from nearly midcourt and then driving and hitting Toppin in the corner for an open three-pointer.

The Knicks ended the quarter with a 32-21 lead but couldn’t shake the Heat in the first half, taking a 55-50 lead into the intermission.

Letting the Heat hang around proved costly as Miami outscored the Knicks 24-11 to start the second half. As the Heat began to inch back, the Knicks called time, but Miami kept coming.

After the first timeout, Josh Hart misfired from three-point range and Max Strus connected on the other end, giving Miami a 63-61 lead. Even after Butler got hurt, Miami was able to pull away.

“I don’t think anyone thought this game or the series was going to be won or lost in the first game,” Hart said. “I don’t think anyone thinks that. This was a tough team. Obviously, frustrated we didn’t shoot the ball well. We got off to that lead and we didn’t make shots. But like I said, we’re gonna continue to make the right shots and that’s what we’re gonna do. So I don’t think there’s an opportunity that we let slip away. It’s gonna be a tough, physical series and every game is different.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.