Barbara Barker: Knicks' Josh Hart shows what he's all about in electric Game 2 performance

It wasn’t easy being a spectator to one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history.

That’s exactly the uncomfortable position that Josh Hart found himself as the Knicks rallied from a 22-point deficit to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference finals series. After missing shot after shot, Hart was benched in the fourth quarter and overtime in favor of Landry Shamet.

So, in Game 2, Hart set out to make sure that he was out on the floor contributing when the Knicks needed it most. He did it by making the Cavaliers pay for leaving him wide open, hitting shot after shot as the Knicks won, 109-93, to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

On a night where Jalen Brunson struggled to score through double teams, his old Villanova teammate picked up the slack by scoring a playoff career-high 26 points, which included going 5-for-11 from beyond the arc.

His presence was so felt that Knicks fans were chanting his name in the fourth quarter. That had to be a pretty heady feeling, especially compared to the way he had felt in the fourth quarter two day earlier sitting on the bench with a towel draped over his shoulders.

“If they continue to leave them open, he’s got to continue to let them fly,” Mike Brown said after the game. “Just a whale of a game from Josh.”

After Tuesday’s practice, Hart made it clear that his top priority was for his team to win, but that he planned to go out and give them everything he had.

“Yeah, obviously that’s always difficult watching from the bench,” said Hart, who scored 13 points and was 1-for-5 from three-point range in Game 1. “Obviously, I want to be out there, I want to help my guys win, but at the end of the day, I don’t have an ego to it. I approach this game with extreme humility.

“I don’t have an ego. I said it last year, the last couple of years I’ve been here: [I’m here] to serve these guys, and that’s the gift God gave me — God put me here to serve these guys and make sure they’re in the best position to be successful. And I put the success of the team over the success of myself any day.”

On Wednesday, both the team and the Hart were successful. In addition to leading the Knicks in scoring, Hart has seven assists, four rebounds and shot 10-for-21 overall.

The win was the Knicks ninth straight, eclipsing their longest wining of the regular season, an eight-game stretch in January and February. The Knicks are now two wins away from their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999 and, by the way everyone is contributing, they have to feel pretty good about themselves. The fact that a player like Hart could rebound from a poor game and have this kind of impact says a lot about the strength and depth of this team.

On paper, Hart is the least offensively threatening of the Knicks. Yet, he is a strong defender, a tough rebounder and the guy who is often cited for doing the kind of little things that don’t show up in a stat sheet.

Hart put in extra time shooting in practice on Tuesday figuring that once again the Cavaliers would continue to dare him to shoot while they used extra defenders on other shooters. His goal was to make them pay.

“Probably the same game plan,” Hart said Tuesday when asked what he expected. “For them, this is the same game plan that put them up 20 or whatever and then we had that comeback so they’re probably gonna do the exact same thing. I’m gonna shoot the exact same shots, I’m gonna shoot it with confidence, play my game — whatever that is in the moment.”

One hallmark of the championship teams Mike Brown was a part of at Golden State as an assistant coach was that different players learned how to sacrifice at different times. He said he is now seeing that on the Knicks.

“Obviously, a big [sacrifice] is when you are in the position that Josh as in Tuesday night,” Brown said, “Or Mikal Bridges was in the Atlanta series. It’s sacrifice. They sacrificed their minutes willingly and they were great about it.”

Great about it, even if it was painful in the moment.

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.