Knicks vs. Celtics Game 1 takeaways
OG Anunoby of the New York Knicks dunks against the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Monday. Credit: TNS/Maddie Meyer
If you believe, trust me, the Knicks believe more
The craziest part of Game 1 might not have been that the Knicks came back from 20 points down in the third quarter at TD Garden against the defending champions, whom they hadn’t beaten all season, or that they saw a chance to win in regulation slip away and were able to recover. The craziest part is that the Knicks insisted afterward that they weren’t surprised.
“I don’t think it builds our confidence; we always have confidence,” Josh Hart said. “The season is peaks and valleys. If you get too high, you’re gonna get knocked down. If you get too low, you’re gonna get buried. So I think we’ve built a tremendous amount of trust in this locker room and with the coaches, so for us to win, everybody had to play their part. And we’ll come back tomorrow and figure out to how to get another win.”
Live and die from long range
The Celtics have been the most prolific three-point shooting team in the NBA, averaging 48.2 attempts per game. And the Knicks insisted entering this game that they wanted to limit those attempts, perhaps learning from the Orlando Magic, who held Boston to 31 attempts per game in the first round.
Instead, the Celtics took 60 threes, and in the third quarter, 19 of their 20 field-goal attempts were from beyond the arc. They were 2-for-15 from three-point range in the fourth quarter and went 1-for-3 in overtime, finishing 15-for-60.
“They still got a lot of 3s up, so it’s on us to limit their attempts,” Jalen Brunson said. “But I think for the most part, we made them tough. They had a lot of easy looks that we were thankful that they missed. But they’re a good team. They make it tough. And you just don’t know when they’re going to be able to knock them down because they also, I think, at the beginning of the year almost had a record on us shooting 60 3s. So we gotta be better at that. Not let them shoot it as much and not let them get open shots up.”
OG equals OMG
OG Anunoby was solid throughout the game, finishing with 29 points and serving as the point of attack defensively for the Knicks as they were switching all over the floor to try to hang close to the dangerous Boston shooters. But the biggest basket came with the score tied in overtime. Anunoby kick-started the Knicks by getting out in transition and taking a feed from Brunson for a dunk, drawing a foul and converting the free throw for a lead the Knicks never surrendered.
“Always looking ahead,” Brunson said of finding Anunoby in transition. “Me and OG always lock eyes and see where we can attack, whether it’s in transition, whether it’s in the half court, he always finds the seam to be open, and when he’s open, I know he’s going to knock it down. It’s just a chemistry we’ve had since we’ve been together. It’s only going to get better.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
