Quentin Grimes almost had his iconic moment.
He collected the ball on the wing. He drove Isaiah Hartenstein. Completed a layup around Precious Achiuwa. With 37 seconds remaining, Grimes, a former first-round pick of the Knicks, gave his new team, the Pistons, a one-point lead.
That all changed when Josh Hart hit a layup after a controversial no-call and the Pistons ultimately lost 113-111 at the Garden on Monday.
But in his return to the team where he got his start in the NBA, and in his second game back from a knee injury, Grimes produced a 14-point scoring outburst in the fourth quarter that put Detroit within striking distance. I fastened it.
“I felt like once we got that bucket, it was just a matter of coming up with rebounds,” Grimes said.
He pretty much did it himself. With 18 seconds left, Jalen Brunson missed a 3-pointer and the ball drifted into the corner by the Pistons bench. Grimes followed.
He jumped into the air, spun around, and tried to throw it at someone, anyone, wearing a white Pistons jersey.
Simone Fontecchio caught it for a moment. But then Hartenstein fumbled the ball, resulting in a no-call, a pass to Hart, and a game-clinching layup that led to chaos.
Grimes woke up Monday morning feeling “extra energized.”
“I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, I have to quit,'” he told reporters after shootaround against the Pistons, but Grimes knew the risks. That was the Knicks. This was a garden. His departure via trade occurred before the trade deadline earlier this month, a reality Grimes accepted in the days leading up to the Knicks-Pistons deal.
“I knew this was going to happen. I didn’t know it was going to be Detroit. It was a small team,” Grimes told reporters Monday morning. “But we certainly knew it was going to happen.”
That’s why it was so poetic when Grimes almost led the Pistons to a rare victory.
He collected more than half of the team’s points in the fourth quarter.
He “got his legs back to me” as Detroit rallied to get stops and rebounds and Grimes continued to run up and down the court.
He was sidelined with a knee injury leading up to the trade, and continued to be sidelined after arriving in Detroit.
He returned on Saturday and two days later hit a 3-pointer at the start of the fourth quarter despite not scoring in the first three quarters.
Former Knicks teammate Evan Fournier then kicked a pass and hit another 3-pointer on target, the last 3-pointer of the period giving the Pistons a 106-104 lead.
And in the final moments, Grimes almost stole the game from his former team.
He almost turned the garden into a stage to prove what the Knicks had lost in their quest for a title. But Hart spoiled the ending.
“It was definitely a shoulder injury,” Pistons forward Author Thompson said. “But you could tell he just wanted to prove something, although he didn’t say anything, at least not to me.
