Knicks’ Stunning Second-Half Surge Puts Celtics’ Fate in Jeopardy—What Triggered the Turnaround?
There’s something electric about a team clawing its way back from the brink, especially when the stakes are sky-high. The New York Knicks pulled off yet another jaw-dropping rally in their NBA Conference semi-final showdown with the Boston Celtics, turning the tide in a game that had fans gripping their seats till the very end. Jalen Brunson’s cold-blooded free throws in the final seconds weren’t just clutch — they were a declaration: the underdogs aren’t going away any time soon. With Josh Hart lighting up the scoreboard and Karl-Anthony Towns dominating the boards, the Knicks are rewriting the script against the reigning champions, even though they finished the regular season ten games adrift. Meanwhile, across the playoff landscape, the Oklahoma City Thunder hammered the Denver Nuggets with a record-tying offensive explosion that shook the series back to square one. In a postseason where resilience and grit reign supreme, these games remind us why we watch, cheer, and sometimes even shout at our screens — it’s just that good.
“They came out with the right intensity and we didn’t. We aren’t just going to flush this. We have to play better and we know that.”After his 42-point performance in game one, Denver’s Nikola Jokic tallied just 17 points and eight rebounds in game two before fouling out in the third quarter.Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder levelled their semi-final with a 149-106 home blowout win against the Denver Nuggets.After coming back from 20 points down in an overtime win in game one, New York did not take the lead in game two until the last two minutes.”We knew what was at stake tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We came out desperate.”
“[Our players] were at their best when their best was needed down the stretch.”The Knicks lead the reigning NBA champions 2-0 in the best-of-seven series after finishing 10 wins behind their opponents in the regular season.”I didn’t really look at tonight as a response as much as I looked at tonight as just us being who we are, and that’s how we’ve been all season,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said.”We started slowly, got in a big hole, dug our way out and then guys made a lot of tough plays,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau.Getty Images
Alex Brotherton
BBC Sport journalist
4 hours ago
“We put ourselves in position to do that and we just didn’t make the plays.””They made the necessary plays to win,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said of the Knicks. Jalen Brunson made two free throws with 12.7 seconds remaining to give New York a 91-90 lead, before Mikal Bridges knocked the ball away to deny Boston a last-gasp chance.Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 17 rebounds for the Knicks, while Bridges scored all of his 14 points in the fourth quarter.Derrick White and Jaylen Brown each scored 20 points for the Celtics, who will travel to New York for game three on Saturday.Josh Hart had a game-high 23 points for New York, who trailed by 20 points in the third quarter and by 16 in the fourth in Boston.MVP favourite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the game with 34 points before watching the fourth from the bench.”We got punked,” Denver interim coach David Adelman said. After losing on a three-pointer in the closing seconds of game one, Oklahoma City scored 45 points in the first quarter and tied the NBA play-off record for the most points in a half with 87.”I got up there, heard the noise and then I just tried to block everything out. And then I made two,” said Brunson – who finished the night with 17 points and a game-high seven assists – on his decisive foul shots.
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