Josh Hart could feel the salt flowing through Monty Williams’ veins.
The New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons faced off Tuesday in a game that the Knicks easily won by the final of 124-99. Most notably during the contest, Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo set a franchise-record by hitting 11 three-pointers. DiVincenzo would finish with 40 points to lead all scorers.
After the game, the Pistons head coach Williams expressed displeasure with the Knicks for supposedly padding DiVincenzo’s numbers.
“I don’t care about their team at all. I could care less,” said Williams in his postgame press conference. “Those guys, the way they got those threes. I don’t want to be a part of that story.”
That led to a pretty brutal reaction from the Knicks guard Hart.
“If he didn’t wanna be part of the story, he should’ve told his guys to defend better,” Hart said when asked about Williams’ comments. “I don’t know what else to say. We got a guy that’s hot, we’re gonna try to find the guy that’s hot. You know, that’s common sense basketball.”
Hart is right here. Riding the hot hand is a fairly basic tenet of basketball, and the onus is on the defense to adjust with a double-team, a hard close-out, or another kind of proactive strategy. Williams cannot have possibly expected the Knicks to just start taking it easy on them (especially since DiVincenzo was subbed out with over three minutes left to play anyway).
There is some further context though that may explain Williams’ saltiness. The last time that the Pistons were at Madison Square Garden, they lost to the Knicks on a very controversial late-game sequence.
