DETROIT — Crew chief David Guthrie acknowledged that the game-sealing non-call during Sunday’s New York Knicks-Detroit Pistons game should have been called a foul.
With the clock winding down in the game’s final seconds, Pistons star Cade Cunningham missed a stepback jumper. The ball smacked off a couple of hands, with the Knicks still up 94-93, and trickled to Detroit wing Tim Hardaway Jr., who rose for a 3-pointer in the left corner with New York energizer Josh Hart flying over to close out. Hardaway leaned in Hart’s direction and let go of an errant jump shot as Hart bumped him.
No call. The Knicks won by one, and they have a 3-1 lead in their first-round series with the Pistons.
After the game, Guthrie told a pool reporter that there should, in fact, have been a foul called on Hart on the final play, which would have sent Hardaway to the line for three free throws with little time remaining.
“During live play, it was judged that Josh Hart made a legal defensive play,” Guthrie said. “After postgame review, we observed that Hart makes body contact that is more than marginal to Hardaway Jr., and a foul should have been called.”
Both teams seemed to understand the magnitude of the play.
“Did I make contact with (Hardaway)? Yeah. I made contact with him,” Hart said a few minutes before the NBA released the pool report. “Was it legal? I don’t know. We’ll see in the last two-minute report.”
He didn’t have to wait so long.
Hardaway wasn’t so cheeky.
“You guys saw it,” he said. “Blatant.”
Moments before the pool report was released, Tim Hardaway Jr. was asked what happened on the final play. Here’s his response:
“You guys saw it. Blatant.” pic.twitter.com/QHVceN0M1Q
— Hunter Patterson (@HuntPatterson_) April 27, 2025
Pistons coach J.B. Bicksterstaff also addressed the play after the game.
“There’s contact on Tim Hardaway’s jump shot,” Bickerstaff said before Guthrie’s comment. “I don’t know any other way around it, there’s contact on his jump shot.”
Had the foul been called, Hardaway, an 86 percent free-throw shooter, could have sealed the game just by nailing the first couple of free throws, giving Detroit a one-point lead. In that scenario, he could have intentionally missed the third. Considering how little time was on the clock at the time of the would-be foul, New York may not have been able to corral a board and call a timeout before the final buzzer sounded.
The Pistons would be heading to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 with the series tied at two games apiece, not with their playoff lives on the line. In actuality, the Knicks now have a chance to close out the series with a win Tuesday.
(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)