GET UP | Knicks destiny for NBA title – Alan Hahn believes Jalen Brunson gonna win series vs Celtics

GET UP | Knicks destiny for NBA title – Alan Hahn believes Jalen Brunson gonna win series vs Celtics

So, let’s talk. What the New York Knicks have done thus far in the 2025 playoffs is obviously not impossible by definition, but it is most certainly improbable. In fact, it is likely the most improbable run in NBA postseason history. Let me count the ways. Beginning with the obvious, the Knicks are the first team to overcome a 20point deficit to win consecutive games in the playoffs, at least since 1998. That’s when we started keeping track of that. In fact, if you calculate the win probabilities they faced in each of their two games in Boston, their chances of being 2-0 right now were roughly 6500 to1. By comparison, you have a marketkedly better chance of being dealt four of a kind in a fivecard hand in poker than the Knicks had of being where they are right now. So, there’s that. But, let’s dig deeper. The Knicks are the 239th NBA team to win the first two games of a playoff series going back to 98. None of the previous 238 led those two games by just 12 minutes. That’s where the Knicks are right now. They have trailed for more than 80% of the time on the floor and they’re up two games to nothing. If you include round one, the Knicks have actually now won five road games in these playoffs. All of them by three points or less. The longest such playoff streak in history had been two. The Knicks are now at five straight and counting. So, how do you explain the inexplicable? Actually, it’s easy. It’s one word. The Knicks are clutch. They’ve outscored the Celtics 55-33 in the fourth quarters of these games. In clutch time, so within the five points in the final five minutes, they’ve outscored Boston 28-12. In game two, Jaylen Brunson scored as many points in the final two minutes as the Celtics did in the final eight and a half. Brunson has 14 clutch time points in this series. The Celtics as a team have 12. So, this series is most certainly not over. The Celtics are the champs. They’ll probably play that way tomorrow at the Garden. But at this specific moment, it is worth pointing out what we have seen from the New York Knicks in these playoffs is something that we have quite literally never seen before. So, Michael Wilbon, I turn to you on that note and I ask you the following question. Are you a believer in teams of destiny? I’ve got people walking up to me in the street in New York here and saying things like, “Sometimes it’s just your year. Sometimes it’s just meant to be. These fans have waited, what is it, 52 years since the last time they saw this team win a championship?” Does it Does this feel like they’re just sort of a team of destiny? No. Not in basketball. I don’t believe in it. I I believe in the best player in the world. If you have one of them, then you’re like we saw with with Joker two years ago. you got the best player in the world, you you got a shot. And this goes on more, I think, in the NBA than the other leagues. You can have it in pro football, you got too many things going on where that person can’t disproportionately affect the action. I don’t believe that in the NHL cuz it’s a game of goalie is what it is, particularly in the playoffs. But I get why people would feel that way about the Knicks, why they want to feel that way about the Knicks. By tomorrow after the end of the first quarter, which you mentioned earlier, we could we could be saying, “Wait a minute.” Yeah. I mean, the Knicks have, Brian’s pointed this out. The Knicks have not had a great game yet, and they got a great game in them probably as much as the Celtics do. The one thing I trust the Knicks to get the max out of themselves more quickly than the Celtics, cuz the Celtics are bound to this philosophy, this this cultism, as I’m calling it now, on how we have to play. This is what we do. I don’t care what you do. Win the game. That’s what you got to do. But I don’t know if the Knicks are good enough. The same things that played the Knicks, the reason why none of us picked the Knicks to get to the conference finals anyway, those things are going to exist tomorrow at 3:30. What Boston did was open the door for the Knicks to do this destiny thing. Yes. And now, like you said, all they’ve got to do is have one game where they’re playing their game and get that win cuz they despite the regular season matchup, the last two were a lot closer despite what the regular season looks like. It was overtime, wasn’t it? The last one was overtime. And so for them now because it’s if you were if you want to call it they were gifted two wins and I mean trailing 80% of the time it feels like a gift. They weren’t gifted. They took it. They they they took them because they were they were on the table to be taken. But you can’t come from 20 points behind without help. Like like if if a team is winning by 20 points, they have to contribute to the other team coming back. So now you have the opportunity because they gave it to you to now really take it with a third win. Wendy looked exasperated. reason that we’re so attracted to this is that the Celtics are a team of calculation and the Knicks are a team of confidence. And the reason that this is going to be fascinating is almost nothing that happens in the first three quarters tomorrow is going to make the Knicks less confident unless the Celtics are up by 45, which I don’t see happening. almost whatever the score is going to the fourth quarter because the Knicks are so confident and because it could be back here with the Celtics and that’s why this is beginning to be such a special little moment here. I cannot wait to see how this series goes. Is there an adjustment the Celtics make? Michael keeps talking about how they’re sticking to their philosophy and Jason Tatum, we had sound, we played it for you earlier in the show where he said, “You don’t change what you do, this is what we do.” Do you think they make any changes? I do think that there could be a couple of times where they where they go at this matchup where they do this a little bit differently, but their overall game plan they believe is working. And I know that that comes off as arrogant. Oh, it is. It comes off as arrogant, but they’re but they’re looking at the stats and they’re going, “This looks like a win to us. Why is this not a win?” And and it’s, you know, a lot of times when we That’s kind of the definition of arrogant, isn’t it? Well, a lot of times we’re doing what we do and we’re supposed to win when we do what we do. Even though we’re not we’re not going to believe the reality of a of a sporting result. We want to take the analytics of what we do and keep doing it in this city. They recognize that it’s called the Yankees and home runs or nothing. It’s the same exact thing. That’s why it’s recognized here. Maybe the point I’m trying to make here is what the Celtics All right, back on Get Up. Back to the NBA. More or less is the next game. These numbers all courtesy of ESPN. Bet Allan. 14 and a half made threes for the Celtics in game three. More or less. I’m going to go more because they’re going to put up a ton like they always do. It’s It’s Look, they’re 25 for 100 in the first two games. They’ve missed 75 three-pointers, but they’re not going to stop putting them up. If you want to give me overunder, I’ll tell you they’re going to shoot more than 40 in this game three. All right, Wendy. Let’s go to Jaylen Brunson’s total 26 and a half points. Would you go more or less? He’s been scoring less than that and the Knicks have been winning. So, I’m going to say less, but I still think he could have a very impactful game as he did in game one and game two. The length is bothering him a little bit during the course of the game, but at the end of the game, they can’t stay in front of him. He shook the great Drew Holiday and got those two points at the end the other night. Um, he could do it in the clutch though, man. And then let’s go to Tatum, Allan. 28 and a half is the points for Tatum. You go more or less. I’m going to go more because he’s faced accountability. He’s talked about it yesterday uh after practice about how he’s got to own how poorly he’s been shooting. The Knicks have played him well, but a great player like that, you don’t hold him down for long and he knows all eyes are on him and all the pressure is on him to perform on the biggest stage in basketball. Absolutely. All the pressure in the world, it would seem, is on the Celtics down two games to none. In fact, yesterday here on Get Up, Big Perk had this to say about Boston right now. The Celtics are done. They’re not coming back in this series. I have all the trust and faith in the New York Knicks. They’re going to win this series. The Celtics will be lucky to get one game. I I I have to be honest with you. I almost fell out of my chair when he said that. I mean, and and surprise, he just said he believes the Celtics are done. Do you? No. No. I think they can win tomorrow. Um I I just think they can I despite all the you know just hubris about what we do at some point the Celtics are champions and I expect them to actually play a game in its most elemental form. We’re we’re engaged with these people. We’re not playing a philosophy. This is not an election. Play the damn game. I I for some reason even though twice they’ve been so stubborn and arrogant and defiant they’ve refused to do it and it cost them. You do you want to really you want to just wave goodbye to the defense of a championship? I don’t believe the Celtics are that arrogant. I mean the Knicks didn’t lead in game two until the 159 mark of the fourth quarter. We’re talking about one bounce of the ball in either direction and this series is two nothing Boston. can’t believe anyone thinks the Celtics can’t come back and win. Of course, and that is what Joe Missoula is basically saying is look at all the numbers. The numbers are demanding that we make a turnaround. I’m just going to say that the Knicks have yet to play well. I know that that doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound I am not trying to diminish what they have done. Jaylen Brunson has had probably this two lowest production games of the playoffs the last two games. not in the clutch, but that’s how they fell behind by 20 points. Carl Towns has done has had good numbers. He hasn’t had a hot two-point shooting. Mhm. What the Celtics have done by botching these two games at home is they have opened the door for the Knicks to have a home win. What I mean by a home win is a win where Miles McBride hits five threes where where you know one of your role players where Bridges goes off. You get these you see these moments where these teams get hot at home. If that happens tomorrow at the Garden, it’s going to be 3 0 and the Celtics are going to be done. But I don’t think that they are overall. I think overall they still have a window because of their greatness as a team. Yeah. The expectation is the Celtics eventually are going to play to the back of their baseball card, right? Like that’s what you’re looking for. It’s what they’ve been all season. They’re high volume three. They’re not a high percentage three-point shooting team. They were 10th actually uh in the league, which is good, but not great for a team that survives for the three-point shot. But you just imagine I it sounds crazy. It almost as if some pressure comes off them getting out of Boston. I totally agree. I think there’s something about putting them on the road, especially at the Garden. Everybody always raises their game. Everybody seems to want to play on that stage and that might actually help them. I am a huge believer in energy in the building. And Michael Wilbine, you you will remember this because you were covering all of this more closely than I was. Phil Jackson always used to say he greatly preferred playing on the road in the playoffs than at home. There were a variety of different reasons. He liked the US against the world mentality. He liked the elimination of distractions. They just had red. They had 23 which is more of those highlights in red which are his road uniforms. But I think now what I think we see is like you could feel it through the TV. You were there. Will Bond was there too. You were there. You could feel early on when the Celtics in game two were not missing those threes. You could hear the crowd and then in the fourth quarter you could hear you could feel the energy in the crowd. I think that has to matter and I think the same thing could flip. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen the Knicks come up with some clunkers in these moments where they go back home and have all of this enormous pressure. Game five against Detroit. Yes, there was a nervous energy in the building. I was talking to Tim Leggler about this cuz he played in the Northeast. He played obviously in Philadelphia and he said there’s something about the Northeast home crowds that they are more anxious than they are encouraging is as if you don’t get out to a fast start now they’re going to start groaning and moaning and they’ll feel like the it’s getting away and and the home team not feeds off it but somehow is affected by it’s like a crew it’s going to be like a crusade tomorrow and not many times in recent basketball history where I think you you you get this confluence of circumstances that just produce drama or at least the expectation of it, right? I mean, aren’t we all expecting something? I don’t know. I don’t know what I just think tomorrow is going to deliver. I’ll tell you the game starts at 3:30. Typically in you don’t get too excited about first quarters in any basketball game, especially in the NBA by 4:00, we’re going to know a lot. Yeah, because the Knicks the What if Brunson hits his first four shots? The Knicks could be up 20 to five. What if Tatum hits his first four shots? I think Russ has a huge game tomorrow. We have much more time to talk about this as we go. Plenty of Nowch. [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] Oh, update. foreign. Hello [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Yeah. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Good. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

GET UP | Knicks destiny for NBA title – Alan Hahn believes Jalen Brunson gonna win series vs Celtics