MIAMI — Josh Hart says it’s not the splinted finger. It’s the legs.
Hart missed both of his three-point attempts in Sunday’s loss to the Heat and is now 0-for-5 from deep through two regular-season games, 0-for-6 including his brief preseason cameo in Abu Dhabi before the lower-back injury that sidelined him for weeks.
“I think most of my shots have been short,” Hart said after the loss. “I’m just getting my legs under me, getting a rhythm.”
Hart entered the season expecting to play through the year with a splint on his surgically repaired right ring finger after re-injuring it during the offseason. But the finger isn’t what’s holding him back.
“I think it’s more legs than the finger. The finger is what it is,” he said. “But when I get my legs under me, a lot of those shorter shots won’t be short.”
Sunday was only his second game back after missing most of camp and the preseason with lumbar spasms. His minutes jumped from 19 against Boston on Friday to 29 in Miami — and with Miles McBride out for personal reasons, Hart had fewer breathers than usual.
“I think honestly just for me it’s more so trying to get my wind,” Hart said. “Today was a tough one in terms of energy and stuff like that, and obviously being down Deuce hurt us. That’s a guy that can knock down shots, pick the ball up, push the pace. So on a day like this where I don’t have it and I’m still trying to get my legs in, someone like that is perfect for me to be like, ‘You know what? Go get me. Deuce, you get in.’
“It’s learning and growing for me, but more so trying to get my legs under me. There were a lot of possessions where mentally I’m like, I’ve gotta get out there — and then I was a step slow.”
BROWN SEES PROGRESS
Even in defeat, Mike Brown said he saw steps forward in how his team processed reads and adjusted within his offense.
“We’re getting there,” the head coach said. “I thought we made improvement from our last game with our reads, although it didn’t show because we didn’t shoot the ball as well as we wanted to. We gave up too many transition baskets, and we sent them to the free throw line, but our reads are getting a little better. I still had to kind of direct them and steer them with different stuff to try to mix it up, but we did get a little better, which is exciting, and there are some positives we can show offensively from tonight’s game.”
The Knicks shot 15-for-54 from three, their second-highest volume of the early season so far, and continue to adjust to Brown’s “spray-three” heavy system emphasizing paint touches and quick perimeter kick-outs.
KAT WORK
Karl-Anthony Towns logged 36 minutes Sunday after playing 31 and 33 in the first two games. He said he trusts Brown to manage his workload.
“[Mike is] going to make the right call for our team. He puts the time in at the gym all the time,” Towns said. “It’s not a secret to y’all how I like to play a lot of minutes, so it doesn’t matter. If that requires one day you play 30, one day you play 45, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
GROWING PAINS
Towns said the team’s transition defense, which Brown pointed to as a major issue, will improve with time and familiarity.
“Things happen. It’s a long season, and we’re still searching for that consistency,” he said. “But I think the effort is there. We’re figuring it out. We have a new coach, a new system on both sides of the basketball. This team keeps working and getting that one percent better.
“Today was a game where you want to learn an inexpensive, expensive lesson — one where you win the game but still understand you didn’t play your best. But things like this happen, and it’ll make us a better team for the next one.”
