It was a Broadway miracle.
In a hectic and thrilling 14 seconds, the Knicks turned a five-point deficit into a one-point advantage and rode the moment to a roaring 104-101 victory over MSG.
The big shot came from Donte DiVincenzo, whose trey gave the Knicks the lead. However, this sequence requires a full explanation.
Jalen Brunson, who had a poor performance all night, finally made his first 3-pointer of the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to two points with 27 seconds left.
It took a lucky bounce off the rim.
The Knicks stripped Tyrese Maxey on the inbounds and he fell to the court.
Game 2 hero Josh Hart got a steal.
That led to a quick miss by DiVincenzo, then an offensive rebound by Hartenstein, and then a big trey by DiVincenzo.
Maxey missed a potential game-winner for the Sixers on the ensuing possession, and Anunoby scored the game-winner at the foul line, giving the Knicks a commanding 2-0 series lead.
Once again, the Knicks got away with a bad game from Brunson.
He followed up his dud in Game 1 with a dud in Game 2, making 8 of 29 shots overall, well below 30 percent for the series.
But his teammates have fallen back, most notably former Villanova teammates Hart (21 points) and DiVincenzo (19 points).
The Sixers, on the other hand, got a lot out of their star player.
But not in the last few seconds.
Embiid and Maxey were listed as questionable on the pregame injury report.
And both looked fine.
Despite his illness, Maxey scored 20 points on 7 of 11 shots in the first half.
He outscored Brunson at the end of the fourth quarter, finishing with 35 points and 10 assists.
Embiid, who has been in an up-and-down recovery from knee surgery, added 16 points with 10 boards in the first two quarters.
He finished the night with 34 points and 11 rebounds.
Hart’s heroics saved the Knicks in the first half.
The forward, who is usually a contributor in a modest job, had scored 19 of his team’s 49 points at halftime.
The Knicks fell behind at the break, but continued to advance steadily.
They finally took the lead late in the third quarter and had a thrilling finish.
“We dominated the glass in the first game, so they’ll come with a different approach and probably emphasize transition points and our advantage on the boards,” Bojan Bogdanovic said. “So the match is going to be a really great fight. It’s probably going to be a terrible match, but that’s the reality.”
“Terrible” might be an understatement, but there were some firework moments. With 5:23 left in the second quarter, Embiid received a technical call for shoving DiVincenzo while holding the ball.
This prompted chants of “Fk Embiid” from the MSG crowd, which the Sixers center greeted with a nod.
This woke up the crowd, but the Knicks were unable to take advantage of the opportunity right away and called a timeout shortly after for a trey by Tobias Harris.
DiVincenzo came back to life with 19 points and hit his biggest shot at MSG in years.
He was confident that breakthroughs would occur.
“I think my confidence is at an all-time high,” DiVincenzo said before the game. “I’m ready tonight. I’m going to shoot comfortably and confidently and accept the results.”
“The series doesn’t really start until after the first game, because everyone wants to get that first game under their belt. Adjustments are made. They obviously We want to play a little more physically. We outplayed them. [in Game 1], Therefore, it is expected that you will physically attack the glass. Every category we beat them in, we expect them to go above and beyond. The mindset is to just prepare and play the same way and take it to the next level. ”
