Knicks lose at buzzer on Durant's three

OKLAHOMA CITY - A fall-away three-pointer by Kevin Durant over a lunging Danilo Gallinari at the buzzer sent the Knicks home with a painful 101-98 defeat Saturday nightat the Oklahoma City Arena.

"That one hurt,'' Mike D'Antoni said after his team lost its sixth straight game, matching a season-high tailspin.

What had been a gritty, hard-fought effort was wasted as the Knicks scored two points in the final three minutes of the game and blew a six-point lead.

Raymond Felton, who entered the game shooting just 28.5 percent from the field in his last four games, missed a pull-up with 6.5 seconds left and the score tied at 98. Then Durant took a difficult shot over Gallinari and swished it at the buzzer.

"It was pretty good defense,'' Gallinari said.

Russell Westbrook (28 points) hit one of two free throws with 29.1 seconds left to tie the score. Westbrook had been fouled on the rebound of a missed runner by Felton.

The Knicks were furious with the call and Felton shook his head in disgust about Westbrook's 17 free-throw attempts in the game. "I'm just going to laugh about it,'' Felton said of the many whistles the third-year guard earned in the game. "That's all I'm going to say.''

Felton had several misses in the final minutes. On one drive, he thought he was fouled. On his jumper with 1:19 left that gave the Knicks a 98-95 lead, he fell hard, but no whistle was blown.

"A couple of times I went to the basket and it could have gone either way with the calls,'' said Felton, who had 10 points and shot 5-for-16. "You know how that goes. But, whatever.''

Durant, the NBA's leading scorer, had 30 points and 12 rebounds for the Thunder (28-15). Gallinari, who defended Durant for just about the entire game, had 23 points in 29 minutes for the Knicks (22-21), including 18 in the first half.

Amar'e Stoudemire had 18 points and 12 rebounds. He failed to reach the 20-point plateau for the second straight game after accomplishing the feat in 26 straight games.

Stoudemire picked up his 13th technical foul of the season when he and Serge Ibaka were hit with double-techs with 5:04 left in the game for bumping each other. Three more technical fouls and Stoudemire will be suspended for a game.

"I don't understand what's going on with these technical fouls,'' he said. "We're really just playing the game; we just bumped a little bit. It's not that serious for a technical foul. I don't understand what these officials are thinking out there . . . It's a respect-the-game policy. That has nothing to do with respect the game.''

The Knicks led 96-90 with 3:05 left in the game after Stoudemire slammed back a rebound of a Felton miss. But Toney Douglas fouled Westbrook on a jumper for a three-point play with 2:49 left and Durant scored on a pull-up with 2:07 left to cut it to 96-95.

Felton hit a wild jumper while falling down with 1:19 left to give the Knicks a 98-95 advantage, but after Durant missed a three-pointer with 1:05 left, Ibaka beat Stoudemire to the rebound and was fouled. He hit both free throws with 1:03 left to cut it to 98-97.

The Knicks held a 77-68 lead late in the third quarter after a pair of threes by Bill Walker, but all it took was a lapse in the final minute of the quarter for the Thunder to close it to two. Durant, shooting just 5-for-16 at that point, nailed a three and then Douglas turned the ball over for a fast-break finish by James Harden. Durant's fade-away made it 77-75 at the end of three.

After going with a big lineup against the Spurs on Friday, D'Antoni went back to Wilson Chandler as the starting power forward with Stoudemire moved back to center. After seeing Stoudemire get pounded by the Spurs' big front line of DeJuan Blair and Tim Duncan, D'Antoni felt the better look is to stretch the floor with a small lineup.

"We've got to clear it out, and that's what Wil does at [power forward],'' D'Antoni said. "He gets the other [big man] out by the three-point line and now when [Stoudemire] gets his guy, he's only got one [defender] to deal with.''