BOSTON — The Celtics didn’t need this. The Knicks did. I’m willing to bet my weekly beer money how they’re going to roll this beer out here, in this city, and they’ve basically spent the last six months like prisoners in solitary confinement, and they’re not doing regular season duty. The days have passed until the end and the playoffs could begin.
Do you know anything?
If the situation were reversed, if the city were reversed, New York would definitely interpret things that way. That’s why Knicks fans and Celtics fans will treat this the same way. as an outlier. As an abnormality. As a fluke.
The Knicks completely crushed the Celtics for three quarters, overcoming a 30-point lead and winning 118-109.
hell. Even the Knicks weren’t ready to declare anything.
“This is not the Celtics we’ve seen for 80 games,” Jalen Brunson said. He was as good as ever with 39 points and a plus-25 rating, but was stripped of his third straight 40-point season, which would have tied a team record. The only thing that made it a point game was a rare missed free throw late in the third quarter. Even more unusually, Tom Thibodeau benched him in the fourth quarter with a 29-point lead, and all of the Celtics’ regular players left for the night.
“I got their phone number tonight,” he said.
If it feels eerily nostalgic when you were in New York, that’s because it is. Certainly, it was the night of December 29, 2007, when the undefeated Patriots visited Giants Stadium, a night with little tangible benefit for either team and only concrete ambitions at stake. Because they were very similar. The Pats had home field by Halloween and were hoping to finish the regular season 16-0. The Giants, locked into a playoff seed, wanted to see what all the hype was about for the supposedly invincible Pats. We all played together.
The result will become part of the history of both teams. Pat has achieved perfection. The Giants proved they could play against Boston’s powerhouses, losing 38-35. As they left Giants Stadium that night, they knew they might not want to play against each other in the Super Bowl again, but they were never intimidated by the prospect and in fact would welcome it.
Even at the Super Bowl later. UPI
If that’s what the Knicks get out of this result, it’s probably good enough. The Celtics’ only goal Thursday night was to keep their rotation players from rolling their ankles. they did it. The Knicks are looking pretty good as a No. 3 seed, and even a loss won’t change that. And perhaps a win as impressive as this one won’t be much different.
But like the Giants before them, they certainly won’t run away from it once it happens.
“It’s not more important than any other game,” Thibodeau said of wins like this and Sunday’s blowout win in Milwaukee. “But they are a good test for us to know exactly where we are.”
What they have is a team that appears to be reaching its second peak at exactly the right time this season. The first game, of course, capped off with back-to-back wins over the Nuggets and Heat (last year’s Finals opponents) in late January, with a dizzying surge followed by buzzkill losses to Julius Randle and OG Anunoby.
Randle won’t play again until next fall. Anunoby is back. If you’re a Knicks fan, you salivate over him every game. On Thursday, for example, he saw time defensively against all of the Celtics’ key players — Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White, as well as slamming down a drive from Kristaps Porzingis, 6-foot-7. Rejected 7 feet 2 inches.
And in a mirror image of versatility, the Celtics threw Brunson nearly every defender and nearly every look imaginable, and not only did it fail to slow his rotation, but it also failed to slow his rotation. A normal minute that could have actually reached 50 if he had played.
Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.
But it certainly doesn’t mean anything.
“We made plays, we made shots, we made a lot of timely plays,” Brunson said. “They are the best dogs in the East.”
On Thursday, the Pats and Giants remained in the standings, just as they had on Dec. 29, 2007. A rematch was needed for that to happen.
Knicks? The Knicks would be happy to accept that replay. Because that likely means they’ve already won two series. Perhaps the Celtics, and Boston, could forfeit this game as quickly as they certainly will on Friday morning.
It would still be hell to watch.
