BOSTON — The Celtics didn’t need this one. The Knicks did it. You can bet your weekly allocation of beer is how they’re going to spin this one here in this town, where they’ve basically spent the last six months like inmates in a cell, ticking off the days until the regular season is over. and the playoffs can begin.
You know what ?
If the situations were reversed, if the cities were reversed, that is certainly how New York would interpret things. This is how Knicks fans would treat this, the same way Celtics fans would. Like an outlier. Like an aberration. As if by chance.
The Knicks spent three quarters completely demolishing the Celtics, settling for a 118-109 victory after stretching the lead past 30.
Hell. Even the Knicks weren’t ready to make any statements.
“This is not the Celtics we’ve seen in 80 games,” said Jalen Brunson, consistently brilliant once again with 39 points and a plus-25 rating, deprived of what would have been a team-record third in a row of 40. -points only because of a rare missed free throw at the end of the third – and, rarer still, Tom Thibodeau who benched him in the fourth quarter with a lead of 29 and the Celtics regulars have all retired for the night.
“We got their number tonight,” he said.
If this sounded strangely familiar to New York, it should have. Because it felt an awful lot like the evening of December 29, 2007, a night when the undefeated Patriots visited Giants Stadium with little tangible merit at stake for either team, just specific ambitions. The Pats, after clinching the field right around Halloween, wanted to finish the regular season 16-0. The Giants, locked into their playoff seed, wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the supposedly unbeatable Pats. Everyone played.
The result is part of the historic narrative for both teams. The Pats achieved their perfection. The Giants proved they could play with the Boston bullies, settling for a 38-35 loss. Knowing that when they left Giants Stadium that night, they might not want to face them again in the Super Bowl, but they certainly wouldn’t be intimidated by the prospect — in fact, they would welcome it.
later in the Super Bowl. UPI
If that’s what the Knicks get out of it, then maybe that’s enough. The Celtics’ only goal Thursday night was to keep their rotation players from rolling their ankles. That’s what they did. The Knicks seem almost suited for the 3 seed, and a loss wouldn’t have changed that. And maybe a victory, even one as impressive as this one, won’t change much either.
But like the Giants before them, they certainly won’t run away if that happens.
“They don’t matter more than any other game,” Thibodeau said of wins like this, and victories like Milwaukee’s blowout Sunday. “But it’s a good test to let us see exactly where we are.”
Where they are, this is a team that appears to be reaching a second peak at precisely the right time this season. The first, of course, was capped by back-to-back wins over the Nuggets and Heat – last year’s Finals opponents – in late January, a dizzying surge immediately followed by losses to Julius Randle and OG Anunoby.
Randle won’t play again until next fall. Anunoby is back, and every game he makes you salivate if you’re a Knicks fan. On Thursday, for example, he logged time defensively against every major Celtics player — holding off Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown and Derrick White, even crushing a drive from 6-foot-7 Kristaps Porzingis, throwing down 7-foot-2.
And in a mirror image of versatility, the Celtics threw just about every defender and just about every look imaginable at Brunson, and it not only failed to slow down his throwing, it actually could have reached 50 if he had played his regular minutes.
Maybe that doesn’t mean anything.
But that certainly doesn’t mean anything.
“We made plays, we made shots, made a lot of timely plays,” Brunson said. “They are the best in the East.”
Thursday didn’t change that, just like December 29, 2007, the order of merit of the Pats and Giants didn’t change. It took a rematch to achieve this.
The Knicks? The Knicks will gladly accept this replay because it will likely mean they have already won two series. Perhaps the Celtics – and Boston – will still be able to cancel this game as quickly as they surely will on Friday morning.
It would still be a hell of a thing to see.
New York Post
