Things Got Weird At The End Of The Knicks-Wizards Game

John Wall—who is having one of the most efficient seasons of his career and has the once-moribund Wizards playing shockingly competent basketball—sealed the game against the Knicks tonight with this lightning-quick behind-the-back dribble that led to a wide-open dunk with 13 seconds left.

The complete misdirection on Brandon Jennings was cool as hell, but Wall did double-dribble here as he was gathering for the dunk, so it technically shouldn’t have counted (it is a skill to be so fast that referees can’t keep up and ding you for the occasional ticky-tack violation, so I’m fine with the no-call here). That was not the only strange play at the end of this one either.

The Knicks mounted a comeback and held the Wizards to just 13 points and three made shots in the fourth quarter. After Wall put the Wizards ahead by three with his dunk, the Knicks manufactured an open corner three for Courtney Lee, only he passed it up and the Knicks wound up losing shortly after. Lee says that a Washington coach imitated a player and yelled that he had Lee covered as a help defender, which prompted him to give up the rock. The video shows that Wizards assistant Sidney Lowe was indeed on the court waving his arms like a defender right before Lee drove at the hoop.

It’s very in-character for the Knicks to squander the best individual scoring quarter in franchise history and see a tremendous comeback unravel at the last second under suspicious circumstances. At least Kristaps Porzingis did a cool jam.