The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink

The playoff hopes of the defending NBA champions were already teetering when Jaylen Brown, of the Boston Celtics, lost the basketball with just over three minutes remaining in Game 4 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Semifinals at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Boston, winner of the 2024 NBA title, trailed 111-104 in a game they led by 14 at one point in the third quarter  [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

But things were about to take an even darker turn. 

Brown’s teammate Jayson Tatum, whose at-times spectacular 42 point-effort carried Boston in this game, lunged for the loose ball after Brown’s mishap. OG Anunoby of the New York Knicks beat Tatum to the ball, picked it up, and dribbled the length of the floor for an easy dunk, effectively putting the game out of reach for Boston. And to make matters that much worse, Tatum, a first-team All-NBA selection the last three seasons, was writhing around the court, holding his right leg, begging for a timeout. He held his hands over his head. Brown and Al Horford, the veteran Celtics forward, stood forlornly over Tatum, as medical staff tended to him. Tatum was carried off the court by two Celtics staffers: he couldn’t put any pressure on his injured leg. He disappeared down a hallway. 

Boston’s hopes for a repeat championship might have vanished with him. 

Moments later, Tatum was spotted being pushed down the hallway in a wheelchair, in tears and obvious pain. New York cruised to a 121-113 Game 4 victory. 

After the game, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters he had no update, other than that doctors told him Tatum had suffered a lower leg injury, and that an MRI on Tuesday would shed more light on its severity.

The Knicks now lead the series 3-1, and are a game away from ending Boston’s season. No NBA team in five years has recovered from a 3-1 hole. The team enjoying a 3-1 lead in the NBA playoffs, historically, wins more than 95% of the time.

While the Knicks will look to finish off the Celtics in Game 5, in Boston on Wednesday, they’d rather do so with Boston’s full squad intact. “I never want to see a player get hurt,” said New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. “I hope it’s not a serious injury.” 

“Prayers up to JT,” said Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, whose 39 points and 12 assists propelled the Knicks in Game 4. “I want to say that first and foremost.” 

The Knicks have now erased deficits of 20, 20, and 14 points in their three victories over Boston in this series, to put them a victory away from reaching the conference finals for the first time in a quarter century. Brunson, New York’s unflappable All-Star point guard, once again led the charges, especially in the third quarter, when he scored 18 points to help put New York on top, 88-85, at the end of the period. Bruson is almost impossible to cover, a challenge even for Boston’s excellent perimeter defenders, U.S. Olympians Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. Though only 6’2”, Brunson’s ability to change speeds and control his footwork enables him to create enough space against taller players to sink his shots. “No moment,” says Thibidou, “is too big for him.”

New York’s Mikal Bridges, Brunson’s college teammate at Villanova who joined New York this year, added a quintet of pull-up jumpers in the fourth quarter to give the Knicks another scoring weapon: his 6’6” height and 7-foot-plus wingspan gives smaller defenders fits, and creates matchup-issues for opponents. Bridges finished with 23 points to complement the Knicks’ balanced scoring attack: Karl-Anthony Towns also chipped in 23 points, and Anunoby had 20.

The Knicks needed this type of all-around victory to prove that they could very well be the superior team. Before tonight, Boston had outplayed New York for the majority of this series: New York needed a pair of late miracles to pull out the two victories in Boston, and the Celtics crushed New York 115-93 in Saturday’s Game 3. The prevailing wisdom going into tonight was that Boston had figured itself out, and that the Celtics were about to put their superiority on display the rest of the way. And when Tatum went on an 11-point tear in the last 1:44 of the first quarter, hitting a mid-range shot and three three-pointers, including a Steph Curry-like 26-foot pull-up bomb, Boston seemed destined to prove the pundits right. 

But the Knicks would never surrender. And by the end of the third, when their defensive pressure and switches forced the Celtics into touch three-pointers they were no longer making with impunity, and when they repeatedly beat Boston to offensive rebounds, the Knicks suddenly looked like the bouncier team. The Garden crowd, desperate for a first extended playoff run since the Bush-Gore campaign, fed off that energy. These Knicks looked like a tough out, even before Tatum went down.

“I don’t even think we’re playing our best basketball yet,” says Brunson.

The numbers don’t lie. Odds are we’re now likely to have a new NBA champion soon enough. And long-suffering Knicks fans, 52 years removed from their last NBA title, now have every right to believe, and say to themselves … “why not us?”