Knicks pull off Game 2 miracle to stun 76ers

NBA

By Stefan Bondy

The Knicks were buried.

Jalen Brunson had just missed his sixth consecutive shot, and the crowd, buzzing all evening, had fallen silent.

Dead silent.

Their Game 2 opportunity had come and gone. The curtain was coming down.

And then the miracle happened.

“Reggie Miller moment,” Clyde Frazier said afterwards in the hallways of MSG. “It’s all destiny, man. All destiny.”

In a hectic and thrilling span of 14 seconds, the Knicks turned a five-point deficit into a one-point advantage, riding that crazy wave to a 104-101 victory over the Sixers at MSG and a commanding 2-0 series lead.

The big shot came from Donte DiVincenzo, whose trey with 13.1 seconds left gave the Knicks the one-point lead.

But the sequence requires a full accounting:

Playing poorly all evening, Jalen Brunson finally connected on a 3-pointer — his first of the fourth quarter after six consecutive misses — to cut the lead to 2 with 27 seconds left.

His shot required a lucky bounce off the rim.

Off Philly’s inbounds, Josh Hart, a hero of Game 2, stripped Tyrese Maxey, who fell helplessly to the court.

It found DiVincenzo, who missed a 3-pointer, which led to a clutch offensive rebound from Isaiah Hartenstein.

The ball then went from Hartenstein to OG Anunoby to DiVincenzo for the biggest Knicks shot in years.

“Find a way,” Brunson said.

“It was loud as hell in there,” DiVincenzo added. “Honestly, after I missed the first one I was really, really, really hoping that Isaiah got [the rebound] because I knew the rotation of everything I was going to get a second look. Thank God he got the offensive rebound.”

Still, the Knicks needed a couple more big plays to ensure a celebration — and Hartenstein obliged with a strong contest on Tyrese Maxey’s missed potential go-ahead layup with 7.6 seconds left.

Anunoby iced the win from the foul line.

When the dust settled, the Knicks outscored the Sixers, 8-0, in the final 27…