Jalen Brunson sat beneath the basket with both arms extended and another look of exasperation across his face.
The All-Star guard had just put the Knicks ahead by a point with a drive to the basket with 4.1 seconds remaining, but once again he didn’t get the and-1 call he and many in the building believed he deserved.
After Shai Gilgeous-Alexander nailed the winning shot at the other end with 1.8 seconds to go — lifting the Thunder to a 113-112 victory and sending the Knicks to their second straight heartbreaking defeat — Brunson finally wanted a word with the officials.
“They said it wasn’t a foul, that’s really, to put it into long-story short, that’s what he said,” Brunson said of what certainly looked like contact by OKC’s Lu Dort on his go-ahead basket. “I don’t think it’s going to impact anything going forward.”
Tom Thibodeau, who has been railing for more calls for Brunson all season, told reporters multiple times after the game to “write what you see.”
“That’s all I can say, write what you see,” Thibodeau said.
One game after netting 61 points Friday in an overtime loss in San Antonio, Brunson scored 30 points, but he also missed a potential game-winning jumper at the buzzer as the Knicks failed to retake the No. 3 playoff position in the Eastern Conference.
The Knicks squandered a 10-point fourth-quarter lead — and missed 11 of 34 free-throw attempts overall — to slip to 44-30.
With Mitchell Robinson (sprained ankle) once again joining Julius Randle and OG Anunoby on the sidelines, the Knicks have eight games remaining, beginning with their first trip to Miami since last year’s playoffs Tuesday night against the Heat.
“I’m looking at it like this is the team we’re going to have,” Josh Hart said. “I think that’s how we have to approach it, that those guys aren’t coming back and obviously we’ll be pleasantly surprised if they come back.
“I’m not in those medical conversations or anything like that, so I don’t know s–t from s–t. But we’ve got to approach it every game and the end of this season that those guys aren’t coming back and if they do, be pleasantly surprised.”
Isaiah Hartenstein enjoyed another strong game in Robinson’s absence with 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Knicks.
But Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 19 points, Josh Giddey registered a triple-double and Jalen Williams scored a game-high 33 for the West-leading Thunder (52-22).
Brunson and Hartenstein had 10 points apiece through two quarters, but Donte DiVincenzo finished 4-for-18 overall, including 12 misses in 16 tries from long distance after setting the franchise record for 3-pointers in a season Friday night against the Spurs.
Thibodeau won a coach’s challenge late in the third quarter, reversing a blocking foul on Miles McBride into an offensive foul on Chet Holmgren as the Knicks took an 85-75 lead into the final quarter.
But the Thunder didn’t go quietly, netting the first seven points of the fourth before Kenrich Williams’ 3-pointer tied it at 88 barely two minutes into the quarter. Consecutive drives by Giddey put the Knicks in a four-point hole.
Giddey’s 3-pointer and a layup by Aaron Wiggins made it an eight-point game before Brunson’s drive, three free throws by McBride and another triple by Brunson erased the entire deficit for a tie game with under three minutes remaining.
Jalen Williams’ long 2-pointer gave OKC a 111-108 lead with 1:34 to go.
After DiVincenzo sank one of two from the stripe, Williams missed two and Brunson clanked his second of two freebies to close within one.
The ball went out of bounds off the Thunder, however, and Brunson banked in a drive in traffic — raising his arms afterward wanting a foul called on Dort — for a 112-111 lead with 4.1 seconds left.
But following a midcourt-inbounds pass, Gilgeous-Alexander sank a 15-foot jumper from the left baseline with 1.8 seconds remaining for a one-point OKC lead.
The Knicks got the ball into Brunson along the baseline, but his turnaround jumper clanked off the front of the rim as time expired.
“They came out ready to play in the fourth,” Brunson said. “They’ve been playing great all year, so we knew we couldn’t just walk into the fourth with a lead and think it’s gonna be easy.
“Obviously we’re in a decent position but we can’t get comfortable. That has to be our mindset going forward.”
