Stop us if you’ve heard this before. There were the Knicks, down by 20 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in Boston against a Celtics team they dropped all four of their regular-season meetings against by a combined 65 points with 5:47 remaining in the third quarter.
This was how the script was supposed to go, after all. Countless national pundits picked the Celtics to cruise to a five-game series win — a gentleman’s sweep, if you will — as resistance against their quest to repeat as NBA champions was predicted not to come from these Knicks.
Oh, how they are wrong already.
New York outscored Boston 47-25 in the final 17-plus minutes of regulation, then put the defensive clamps down in overtime, yielding just five points to pull out a shocking, statement-making 108-105 victory to take an early series lead.
“We told each other, ‘Just keep believing. Keep fighting. Keep sticking together and keep chipping away,'” star guard Jalen Brunson, who scored 11 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, said. “There wasn’t going to be a 29-point shot to come back. We just had to keep chipping away possession by possession.”
Knicks come back from 20 down, shock Celtics in massive Game 1 win
Brunson had plenty of support, particularly from OG Anunoby, who matched the star point guard’s output with 29 points of his own.
The Knicks went on a 23-12 run to end the third quarter — Anunoby scored 12 in that frame — and cut their deficit to just nine at 84-75. They then scored eight straight points to start the fourth quarter, featuring an Anunoby 3-pointer with 8:58 to go in regulation that cut their deficit to one.
Down two with seven and a half minutes to go, Anunoby stripped Celtics star Jayson Tatum and threw it down to tie the game at 86 apiece. Brunson proceeded to put his team on his back and score 11 straight points before Anunoby’s 3-pointer put the Knicks up 100-98 with 1:08 remaining. Boston’s Jrue Holiday tied it up 15 seconds later to force overtime.
“Just toughness, just grittiness,” Josh Hart, who posted a 14-point, 11-rebound double-double, said when describing what kept the Knicks’ comeback hopes alive.
There was no greater example of that Knicks grittiness than on the final play of the game.
Anunoby added three more points in overtime while Mikal Bridges’ 3-pointer and Karl-Anthony Towns’ layup put the Knicks up 108-102 with 1:47 to go. Celtics star Jaylen Brown made it a three-point game with 1:15 left in what was just their second field goal of the extra period.
With three seconds left and Boston in possession, looking to inbound from the right sideline near half-court, Bridges ripped Derrick White’s cross-court pass out of Brown’s hands. The New York guard, in his first year with the team after being acquired from the Nets — and no stranger to criticism during his debut campaign — launched the ball quarterback style as time ran out.
“Those are big-time toughness plays,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s a 50-50 ball, and just go get it. That’s what he did. When you’re trying to win a playoff game, they’re hard to win. You have to make plays like that. Your defense, your toughness, your teamwork, that’s paramount in a playoff game.”
“I was just watching his eyes. I’m a football guy,” Bridges said. “…We’re going to keep fighting. It’s who we are. We’re going to go until the clock hits zero.”
It was good enough to create one of the most memorable playoff wins in recent franchise history, but the fashion in which Game 1 was stolen cannot become the norm, considering these are the defending champions, after all, who have had the Knicks’ number for quite some time.
“We know that this series isn’t going to be easy,” Hart said, as he is now solely focused on Game 2 on Wednesday night at TD Garden. “That’s a heck of a team… Game 2, 0-0. We’ve got to go out there and do the same thing. That’s our mindset. We’ve got to flush [Game 1] as soon as possible.”
Just don’t expect Knicks fans to flush it any time soon.
