Barbara Barker: Knicks' Josh Hart shows what he's all about in electric Game 2 performance

It wasn’t easy being a spectator during one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history.

That’s exactly the uncomfortable position that Josh Hart found himself in as the Knicks rallied from a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday night. After missing shot after shot, Hart was benched in the fourth quarter and overtime in favor of Landry Shamet.

So, in Game 2, Hart set out to make sure he was on the floor when the Knicks needed him most.

He did it by making the Cavaliers pay for leaving him open, hitting shot after shot as the Knicks won, 109-93, to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

On a night when Jalen Brunson had a playoff career-high 14 assists as he was forced to pass out of double-teams, he often found his old Villanova teammate. Though Hart struggled early, missing his first three shots, he settled into a rhythm and finished with a playoff career-high 26 points, shooting 5-for-11 from beyond the arc.

Knicks fans chanted his name in the fourth quarter. That had to be a pretty heady feeling, especially compared with the way he felt in the fourth quarter two nights earlier while sitting on the bench with a towel draped over his shoulders.

“If they continue to leave them open, he’s got to continue to let them fly,” Mike Brown said after Game 2. “Just a whale of a game from Josh.”

Statistically, when you look at the Knicks’ starting five, Hart is the guy you would want to leave open. The Cavaliers did that in Game 1 and it worked out well for them, with Hart going 1-for-5 from three-point range and finishing with 13 points.

On Thursday, however, he made them pay.

“Sometimes the plan doesn’t go to plan sometimes,” Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen said of leaving Hart open. “He got hot, not even at the three-point line. He did everything on offense for them. Kudos to him for changing the game and having an impact in a different way.”

The win was the Knicks’ ninth straight in the playoffs, eclipsing their longest winning streak of the regular season, an eight-game stretch in January and February.

The Knicks are two wins away from their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999, and given the way everyone is contributing, they have to feel pretty good about themselves. The fact that Hart could rebound from a poor game and have this kind of impact says a lot about the strength and depth of this team.

“I think the character of those guys, the character of the guys in the locker room,” he said. “We don’t really care who gets the shine, the shots, the minutes . . . those kinds of things. We’re focused on winning and I think everyone is willing to sacrifice their own personal agendas or performance for the betterment of the team, and when you have a group of guys that do that, the sky’s the limit.

“I think sometimes it’s human nature to think about your own individual performances, and I think if we do that at all, we have enough camaraderie to hold each other accountable. That’s the biggest thing with us.”

It’s always been hard for coaches to quantify what Hart brings to a team. He often is credited with doing the little things that don’t show up on a statistics sheet.

“I just try to go out there and play my game. I’ve never been a huge analytics guy,” he said. “[Analytics] are a lamp post to a drunk person. You can lean on it, but it won’t get you home.”

Hart put in extra time shooting in practice, figuring that the Cavaliers again would continue to dare him to shoot and use extra defenders on other shooters.

One hallmark of the championship teams Brown was a part of as a Golden State assistant coach was that different players learned how to sacrifice at different times. He said he is seeing that on the Knicks.

Brown has said it took him a while to get a read on Hart after taking over the team this past summer, specifically because a lot of what he does can’t be measured. He is not surprised, however, that Hart was able to bounce back from a tough performance and come up with a big game when the Knicks needed it.

Said Brown: “It’s just who Josh is. He’s a gamer.”

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.