Pitch to send Knicks’ Josh Hart to NBA All-Star Game falls short

No other Knicks are joining Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson in San Francisco. 

Despite a late fan- and media-driven push to get Josh Hart on the All-Star team, the Knicks were shut out of the reserves. 

Boston’s Jaylen Brown, Indiana’s Pascal Siakam, Cleveland’s Darius Garland, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, Cleveland’s Evan Mobley, Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard and Miami’s Tyler Herro made up the seven East reserves, who were voted on by the NBA coaches, including Tom Thibodeau. 

“It’s really an impossible task,” the Knicks coach said. “You try to be as fair as possible, you weigh it out and usually there’s two or three guys at the end that you could make a case either way. 

“And then you tend to — at least I do — go with the winning aspect of it. You have to decide on something that separates the players. And it’s unfortunate. And then you’re hopeful that in some ways, they can get named later. But there’s always going to be a couple guys that get left off that are going to be deserving.” 

The Knicks’ candidates — Hart, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby — were long shots and missed the cut.