DeMar DeRozan’s late basket spoils RJ Barrett’s 44-point night as Knicks fall to Bulls

All game long it had been RJ Barrett carrying the night, but in the final second, DeMar DeRozan stole the show.

Barrett scored 44 points, but after the Knicks missed four free throws in the final 66 seconds to give Chicago a chance, DeRozan hit a foul-line jumper over Quentin Grimes to give the Bulls a 118-117 win over the Knicks on Friday night at Madison Square Garden.

DeRozan hit the go-ahead jumper and was fouled by Grimes with four-tenths of a second left. He intentionally missed the free throw, but the officials originally ruled that the ball — which banked hard off the glass — did not hit the rim, which would have given the Knicks one last chance. But after a replay review, it was ruled that the ball had grazed the rim after hitting the backboard, giving the Bulls the ball and the game.

Barrett’s big night and Julius Randle’s 29 points and 12 rebounds weren’t enough to save the Knicks (18-15). They have followed up their eight-game winning streak by losing two straight and face the 76ers on Christmas Day.

It was a heartbreaking loss because the Knicks had controlled the game much of the second half — never trailing until that final shot — and because they had done themselves in at the free-throw line, squandering chances to put the game away.

The Knicks were 9-for-15 in the fourth quarter and 15-for-26 from the line overall.

Grimes missed a pair with 1:06 left and the Knicks up three and Jalen Brunson (an 89% free-throw shooter this season) badly missed a pair with 6.4 seconds to play and the Knicks clinging to a one-point lead.

“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Brunson said. “Practice it all the time. Confident when I get to the line. Just missed it.”

“Misses are part of the game,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “The challenge right now is to make sure we have urgency when we play. It’s the time of year too when you can get distracted. You can’t allow anything thing to distract you from getting ready to play.”

Barrett — who shot 6-for-6 from three-point range and 14-for-20 overall — came out of the game for a breather with 4:55 left in the third quarter and took a seat on the bench, then leaned over onto Obi Toppin’s shoulder as if he were going to fall asleep on his teammate. No one would have blamed him for needing a well-deserved rest. By the time he sat down in the third quarter, he already was up to 34 points — more than he had in any complete game this season — and had just thrown down an emphatic dunk over Nikola Vucevic.

“Tonight I had it going,” said Barrett, who had 26 points in the first half. “It’s just frustrating to not get the win. I feel like we did enough things to get the win but we came up short.”

When he entered the game in the fourth quarter, he was serenaded with chants of his name from the Garden crowd. He hit a three-pointer for a 103-98 lead, and his two free throws made it 105-100.

With 3:15 left, Barrett lost his dribble and Ayo Dosunmu went the other way for a fast-break layup to cut the Knicks’ lead to 111-110.

Zach LaVine tied it at 112-112 with a pair of free throws. But when Barrett found Randle in the corner, Randle faked the three-pointer, drove into the lane, converted the bank shot and drew a foul for a three-point play with 1:45 remaining.

After Grimes missed two free throws, LaVine brought Chicago within one again, but Barrett answered one more time, hitting a step-back jumper in the lane with 29.4 seconds remaining for a 117-114 lead.

LaVine drove for a layup with 7.6 seconds left, and Brunson missed two free throws.

With that, the Bulls needed just a two-point field goal and put the ball in the hands of DeRozan, the best mid-range shooter in the NBA. In a switch, Grimes picked him up and rose with him on the jumper — but he couldn’t stop him.