This was a day, what was supposed to be such a big and loud and memorable basketball day in New York, when the Knicks were supposed to rise up one more time against the Celtics, this time in their own Garden, and put themselves a win away from the Eastern Conference finals. So many old Knicks were in the house, Clyde and Bill Bradley and Bernard and Patrick Ewing, all showing up for what would have been the biggest win in Madison Square Garden since the 90s, the last time the Knicks mattered the way they do right now.
The only problem, and not a small one, is that it was the Celtics who showed up for Game 3. The new Knicks did not. This time they didn’t have the champs right where they wanted them when the champs got ahead 20. This time the Celtics closed the deal, and absolutely laid out the place in the process. What mecca?
Maybe the Knicks thought the Celtics were going to keep missing 3’s forever, after they’d missed 75 out of 100 of them in Games 1 and 2. No. This time the Celtics came out and made 12 of their first 19 and Jayson Tatum, who looked completely lost in Boston, made every one he looked at in the first half. Not even the new Pope, a Villanova guy, was going to save the ‘Nova Knicks and all the rest of them on Saturday afternoon, when what really happened with the Celtics and Knicks was this:
Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals looked a lot like the first three games the two teams played in the regular season, and even the end of the fourth, when the Celtics got the Knicks again in overtime and closed out the season-series sweep.
The Knicks, on such a heady roll, coming off two games when they did come from 20 behind in the second half, came home and got themselves good and rolled. In the end, Game 3 wasn’t about the Monster of Madison Square Garden, which did about as much for the Knicks on this day as it did last spring in Game 7 against the Pacers, when it was the Pacers who wouldn’t miss. Game 3 was about Celtic Pride. That old thing.
It was just one loss, bad as it was, and not just on the scoreboard. The Knicks are still ahead two games to one, and they do get a Game 4 at home on Monday night. That is when we will find out just how much trouble they just made for themselves.
The Celtics shot better than the Knicks did, defended better, were never in danger of going down three games to none and being as good as gone. It was 96-70 at the end of the third quarter. It seemed like more. The Celtics were still ahead 104-83 halfway through the fourth. This game was long since over, and everybody watching knew it. Again: We will see on Monday night just how much the game is back on between the Celtics and the Knicks. After two games when the Celtics died by the 3, this time they lived by it. And looked very much alive in the process. And played like champions with their season on the line.
Can they sustain it? We will see about that. Can the Knicks get up the way the way the Celtics just did? Of course they can. We saw how they kept getting knocked around by the Pistons, and how they kept coming back. But those were the Pistons. These are the Celtics, truly playing for their season, unless they thought they could come from 0-3 down the way another Boston team did against the Yankees back in ’04. And acted that way.
The Celtics had been hit, and hard, in Games 1 and 2. Down the stretch in both those games, despite having those 20-point games they not only didn’t look like the defending champs of the sport. They looked as soft as soft ice cream. Then they showed up in the first quarter on Saturday, when they needed so badly to show up. They weren’t just taking the Knicks out of the game in the process. It’s as if they took 19,000 other people in the building along with them.
This time it wasn’t just Tatum and Jaylen Brown remembering how to do it, at both ends of the court. Boston got a tremendous, important performance from Payton Pritchard off the bench, who would finish with 23. Derrick White had 17 and there were times when he seemed to be everywhere on defense, blocking shots and harassing everybody except Clyde and Bill Bradley and the rest of them. Old Al Horford showed up with 15 points, and Luke Kornet gave his team big minutes in the paint. The Knicks didn’t just lose on this day. They got thrown down a flight of stairs.
The Celtics made 20 3-pointers after only making 25 in the first two games of the season. They were already back up on one knee early. Before long they were all the way back up. Then they were the ones throwing big punches, haymakers, early in the game and in the middle and all the way to 115-93. Now the Knicks have been hit. They absolutely get the chance to come right back on Monday night. Maybe then the mecca will start mecca-ing.
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS FOR STEPH CURRY, THE KNICKS ALREADY WON TWO MORE THAN PEOPLE THOUGHT AND THANKS FOR STATING THE OBVIOUS, PAT …
Well, yeah, but what happens with the Yankees when No. 99 isn’t hitting .400?
Steph Curry wasn’t supposed to go nite-nite because of a pulled hamstring, that’s not the way the story was supposed to go.
Still wondering where exactly Jayson Tatum was going at the end of Game 2.
By the way?
I’m so old I can remember when we were still hoping that the Knicks could get a game off the Celtics.
You wonder what would have happened with Devin Williams if he hadn’t gotten Xander Bogaerts out with the bases loaded the other night.
Speaking of which:
Did anybody think the Yankees had enough pitching even before Gerrit Cole got hurt?
You would have thought Jeanine Pirro would have been more qualified to be an astronaut than a prosecutor in Washington, D.C.
If there’s a flight delay on JetBlue ten years from now, the current Transportation Secretary will still be blaming it on Joe Biden.
This is what Pat Riley said the other day:
“I think we do have to make changes. There’s no doubt there has to be some change.”
Gee, you think, Riles?
Somebody catch me up:
Is the LIV tour signing Jon Rahm still the golf equivalent of the Knicks getting Jalen Brunson?
Patrick Ewing would have been happy just having one ‘Nova Knicks as a wing man.
All the Yankees fans who can’t wait to boo Juan Soto at the Subway Series next week — do they think it was another Juan Soto who did as much as anyone, including Aaron Judge, to put their team back in the World Series for the first time in 15 years?
I don’t want to act as if I’m stuck on this or anything, but apparently, these Ranger coaches just keep firing and hiring themselves.
It is now 31 years since the Rangers won the one Stanley Cup they have won in the last 85 years.
It started to reach the point where I thought white smoke was going to start blowing all across Jersey when Abdul Carter finally picked his number.
Deion Sanders is probably still upset that he didn’t get to decide where his kid was going to play pro football.
Going into this weekend, Pete Alonso was hitting .328, with nine homers, 34 RBI, and an OPS of 1.085.
So it’s become kind of official that hitting behind Juan Soto, in any borough, is a really good gig.
The Florida team that won the NCAA men’s championship this past season was something to see.
But Billy Donovan’s Florida teams, who went back-to-back, remain one of the best college teams I’ve ever seen.
Going into this weekend’s series, the Yankees were exactly 1 ½ games better in the standings than the Athletics.
The Pirates only fired their manager this week because there’s no way for Pirates fans to fire their owner.
Incidentally, the owner’s name in Pittsburgh is Nutting, which is four letters too long, if you ask me.
Paul Skenes must feel as if he’s looking at more hard time than Andy Dufresne in “Shawshank Redemption.”
The pre-game and post-game baseball shows on SNY and the YES network, mostly manned by Bob Lorenz and Jack Curry and Gary Apple and Todd Zeile, are consistently excellent.
How long before Bill Belichick’s girlfriend gets her own reality series?
Wait, check that.
Maybe this IS her reality series.
I saw where Rafael Devers seems insulted that the Red Sox would even ask him to play first base, which got me thinking that while there’s no “i’ in team, there might be one sneaking around inside, well, “Rafael Devers.”
