“I felt fine,” said Van Horn, who finished with seven points in 26 minutes on only 3-of-11 shooting. “But it was his decision.”

Van Horn wound up missing his first free throw after returning to the game. He hit the second one to draw the Knicks within 81-77 with 1:08 to go, but it turned out to be the Knicks’ final point of the game.

“In the beginning, Keith was struggling,” Wilkens said. “And then they [the Heat] went small and we went small.”

And Van Horn was left out of the mix.

Van Horn said that while he felt refreshed despite playing on back-to-back nights, he was a little rusty when he got back into the game. That long an absence is not something that he is not accustomed to on a regular basis.

“It’s difficult coming in after sitting for so long,” Van Horn said. “It makes it tough.”

He doesn’t know whether to expect more of that treatment under his new coach.

“When a group gets going, he seems like he stays with it,” Van Horn said of Wilkens. “He’s won a lot of games, so you can’t say it doesn’t work.”