The New York Knicks were in no mood for moral victories after falling to the mighty Boston Celtics again.
If style points counted, the New York Knicks might’ve moved up a peg on the NBA leaderboard after their most recent game. Alas for Manhattan, only two columns on Madison Square Garden’s big screen count.
The Knicks were once again in the wrong column in a matchup against the Association’s elite, as they fell by a 119-117 overtime final to the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night at MSG. While this edition of the long-standing rivalry wasn’t as one-sided as its recent predecessors (a trio which Boston won by a combined 63 points), the Knicks made it clear they weren’t interested in moral victories.
“We don’t take moral victories,” Karl-Anthony Towns, he of 34 points and 14 rebounds, declared in video from SNY. “We did a better job but it’s about getting the win and we just didn’t do that tonight.”
“We’ve just got to execute better, it’s as simple as that,” Jalen Brunson, scorer of 27 in his second showing back from a 15-game injury absence, said in another video from SNY. “We shouldn’t be in that position anyway, to be in overtime.”
To Brunson’s point, the Knicks (50-29) had control for most of Tuesday’s game and led by as much as 11 in the first half. The Knicks had a few reinforcements this time around, such as the emergence of Mitchell Robinson.
The bulking backup center got Boston out of the paint in the early going and forced them into futile threes, as the Celtics sank only 8-of-26 in the first 24 minutes. New York also bullied Boston to the tune of a 60-30 advantage in paint points, which afforded them a fleeting chance at an upset.
But once the Celtics’ famous threes started falling, the Knicks’ statement-making abilities lost momentum. In four games this season, the Celtics sank 84 three-pointers against the Knicks, the most for any New York opponent in a yearly quartet.
Former Knicks franchise face Kristaps Porzingis flipped the script with a perfect 4-of-4 tally from deep in the third period and later gave Boston a permanent lead with one last triple with 40 seconds left in overtime. The extra period was forced by a Jayson Tatum three sunk with less than three regulation seconds remaining, one that was allowed to fly after the Knicks failed to foul up three.
Despite the loss, the Knicks are still on pace to secure the third seed on the Eastern Conference playoff bracket (up two games and a tiebreaker on fourth-place Indiana). That would put them on pace for a second-round get-together with the second-ranked Celtics assuming each side handles business in the opening round.
One can argue that the Knicks perhaps drew a little bit of blood from a Boston group that played all of its headliners despite nagging injuries. New York, however, can hardly bask in it until the most important statistic is corrected.
“They’re the defending champion, so until someone proves they can beat them, they’re defending their championship,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said in video from SNY. “So we know that there’s a lot of work for us to do. We’re still working through things. I thought Jalen gave us really good minutes, so that’s a big plus. Each game he’ll get better and better. But, you know, the playoffs will be here shortly. So there’s urgency to this. “
