Jalen Brunson doesn't receive enough help as Knicks' season ends with Game 6 loss to Heat

MIAMI — Jalen Brunson had carried the Knicks all night, as he had for much of the postseason, and he had dragged a struggling, inexperienced team to within two points with 14.4 seconds left and the ball in his hands. He needed one more shot, one more play, one last bit of heroics.

One more play could mean one more game, one more chance to extend a season that already had gone deeper into the postseason than most could have imagined.

With the Knicks having cut a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit to two, he brought the ball upcourt. Caught in a double-team, he tried to slip the ball to Julius Randle, but it was deflected and stolen, bringing the season to a sudden, crashing ending.

The Knicks wound up falling to the Heat, 96-92, as Miami won the Eastern Conference semifinal series in six games.

It would be hard to ask more of Brunson, who followed up his 48-minute, 38-point effort in Game 5 with 41 points and 14-for-22 shooting in 45 minutes. But the rest of the Knicks shot 13-for-49 from the floor. RJ Barrett was 1-for-10. Randle was 3-for-14.

With the Knicks down six, a flagrant foul on Gabe Vincent for a forearm to Brunson’s face gave Brunson two free throws and the Knicks the ball with 59.2 seconds left. He sank both free throws and fed Josh Hart cutting to the rim for a layup to close the gap to 92-90 with 54.6 seconds left.

Jimmy Butler (24 points) missed on a baseline jumper and Hart pulled down the rebound. But with a chance to tie, Brunson finally could not make a play.

“You’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” said Brunson, who scored 15 points as the Knicks jumped to a 31-17 lead. “They didn’t play like an eight seed at all. They’re unbelievable. So the utmost respect for them, that organization. I like the way we fought these past couple of games. Down two with the ball, I’ve got to give us a chance to even get a shot attempt. That turnover is unacceptable. Yeah, it’s tough.”

Said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra: “How is that dude not an All-Star or All-NBA? . . . He should be on one of those teams. I wish he was still out West. You gotta respect him as a competitor. He’s like a lot of our guys in our locker room. He’s got an iron will. There’s something about these Villanova guys. They’re as tough as they come as competitors. I told Kyle [Lowry] at some point during this series, don’t ever forget you were the first one, OK, but Jalen has taken that baton for sure.”

On the first days of training camp, Barrett said the Knicks would shock the world. And maybe they did, finding their way all the way to this night, Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. But when the end came, that didn’t make the pain any easier to take.

“I played terrible,” Barrett said. “I’m very disappointed in how I played today. I don’t know. Just, it’s a lot right now. You fight for something, you want something so bad and then I personally did not — I don’t feel like I played my best. It hurts, but it’s good to have experiences like these. You can learn from them. They’re a very good team, very experienced. They’re very poised. So you can learn from that.”

The expectations outside of their locker room, even with the addition of Brunson, were low. Oddsmakers put the line at 38 wins before the season began.

It seemed almost comical when Barrett countered those predictions with one of his own. He remembered two seasons ago, when the Knicks were the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference before losing in the first round of the playoffs, and believed that a return would come.

“Well, of course it’s not enough for us,” Barrett said after Game 6. “We wanted more. We wanted to move on and continue to show and prove who we are. But sometimes in life that happens. But it was a good year overall for us, being able to add in J.B. in the team and stuff like that. So we’re gonna sit with this one for a little bit, figure it out and come back stronger next year.”

Now the question is, did they shock the world enough by getting this far?

“There’s always disappointment in the end of the season and in the end, there will be one team standing,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “So take what we learned from it. Get away for a little while, decompress, but proud of the way this team worked all year. So I thought they improved daily throughout the course of the season. I thought we got valuable experience in the playoffs. We learned a lot and to use what we learned to move forward.”

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.