Knicks Put The Celtics On The Brink Of Elimination With Game 4 Win At The Garden | New York Knicks

Knicks Put The Celtics On The Brink Of Elimination With Game 4 Win At The Garden | New York Knicks

The next postgame show is presented by Tri-State Audi. Visit your tri-state area Audi deal today. Jason Tatum. Great game, 42 points, but left late with what looked to be a significant right leg injury. Jaylen Brunson 18 of his 39 in the third quarter. Brunson coming through. The Knicks coming through. They are up three games to one as they win 121 to 113. One more win and the Knicks are on the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Great to have you with us, Bill Pedo, Alan Han, Wally Zerbeck from our Delta MSG studios. What an epic second half, Allan, for the Knicks. They outscored the defending champs in the second half 70- 51. We talk a lot about three-point shooting. Boston began 12 of 24, but in the second half from deep, they went only five of 21. They had to wait that part of it out, but Jaylen Brunson in that third quarter went 1984 Bernard King. He just decided that’s it. Enough’s enough. and he started getting into attack mode. All the words he was using, the urgency, the intensity, the force, all the things that he talked about, he brought in that third quarter. It got the building going. They went from down 14 with the lead and it was just a completely different feeling in that building. Momentum change. Yeah, it was a big time performance. They got stops. Those stops led to the aggressors and the Knicks took over and that building was fun. All right, guys. Josh Hart is across the street. He now joins us. Josh, thanks so much for joining us. Congrats on a great win. Tell us about the second half. You guys were dominant after halftime. How’d you do it? Yeah, man. Uh, I think it kind of started in the second quarter. Um, I think we only allowed 23 points in that second quarter. The first quarter is what really killed us. So, we knew um, you know, and it was the last couple minutes of that first quarter, so we knew we had to pick it up. We did on the the second quarter and then coming out of halftime, we knew we had to really bring it in. That’s what we did. Josh, when they’re hitting threes like they were doing early in that game, just like they were doing in game three, it’s got to get demoralizing in this game. Did you just not allow that stuff to affect you? Yeah, man. Um, that’s why you need to play every game um as hard as you can with a sense of urgency and a sense of desperation in the playoffs. Um, we let them get confidence uh last game coming out and knocking down shots in the beginning of the game and we couldn’t put out fire and they came in with confidence because of that. And uh fortunately, you know, we were able to get stops defensively um get out and run and have um play Nick basketball and have fun. Josh, Jaylen was Jaylen, but there were contributions all over the roster from that locker room. Everyone seemed to get unlocked in today’s game. How did it happen? Um no, man, it was huge. Obviously JB does what he does, but um Cat, I mean, you know, played a great game. OG um let the game come to him and knocked down big shots and got big defensive plays and then Muel Bridges man you can’t say enough about him all the adversity that he’s had this season and he just keeps coming through for us in the clutch man. So um you got to give credit to those guys. They played played well and shout out to PJ Tucker for um you know making sure we’re we’re up. We’re talking you know he he brought that championship pedigree to us and um he deserves a big shout out. What did what did what did PJ have to say to the guys? Did he have a speech or something about what you’re referencing? No, man. He He’s just something that always talks to us. Um and uh you know, he he’s a champion and he he’s bringing that mentality. Josh, thanks so much for dropping by. Good luck trying to wrap it up in Boston on Wednesday night. Knicks now up three games to one. And that third quarter, Allen Wallally, was so consequential because the Knicks are down 11 after the uh first two quarters. and Jaylen Brunson just took control. We’ve seen this happen. He hasn’t had his best game in this series until tonight. But 18 of his 39 in the third quarter, the Knicks were down by 14 and they closed the quarter on a 30-13 run. He just seemed to just start getting lit up. He just, you could see him getting into the paint into a little more of attack mode and getting to his spots. And you know, when he also doesn’t let the defense get set, Wally, it’s different. And it looked like he tried to speed up a little bit in this game to get to his spots. Oh, no. He said, “I got to get aggressive.” And the quality of possessions and the different ways that the Knicks can score compared to the Boston Celtics. That’s what took over this game for the Knicks. They need mid-range shots. They’ll go to Bridges. They need layups. They were getting layups from Brunson. Jaylen Brunson also, he started to knock down those threes. These are really good looks. Look at the quality of shots that the Knicks are getting. I’ve been saying this all along. When the Knicks can put the pressure on the Celtics and it’s a close game, they have so many more options to score the the Celtics become so one-dimensional, dribble the ball up the floor, Jason Tatum, pick and roll, try to make a 23, 25 ft shot. And when once in a while he’ll get double teamed, they’ll find a guy in the corner, happened to be Drew Holidayiday, who had a wideopen three. He missed it. They missed some of those open shots. There was so much pressure on those threes in the second half. The versatility that Tom Thibido has developed as an offense is the reason why the Knicks were able to just dominate that second half. They have so many more options and they can keep the Celtics completely off balance with the w with the many weapons that they have. All right, we look at the fourth quarter and Josh Hart referenced Muel Bridges. You got Jaylen Brunson off and resting at the beginning of this fourth quarter, Wally. And Male Bridges, he has the ability to take control. He had the mid-range game going and 10 of his 23 came in the fourth quarter. I think eight of the 10 came with Brunson watching and resting early in the fourth quarter. And that’s tough for a defense to defend when you have another guy like that who can just make plays. And he’s so good when he gets into that mid-range. They were just getting all kinds of mismatches. Christophs Gorzingis is getting switched off onto people. He’s got a virus. He can’t move. I mean, look at these. You got Al Horford starting out on Jaylen Brunson. Al Horford’s 38 years old and he’s guarding the most clutch player in the NBA. Mel Bridges has a height advantage over Derek White. Use it every single possession. He can get whatever shot he wants. And then captain turnover just started to kick into gear and the Knicks were getting turnovers all over the place. That was an awful sight to see. An unbelievable player, a superstar in the NBA. He was killing it tonight, too. Yeah, he had 42 points in this one. Was keeping his team in it. Look at that rattle in. Huge shot by Jaylen Brunson just stretching those threes when those are momentum threes. He started taking the momentum ones. OG Anobi got himself into this game early by being aggressive and just the dynamics of the Knicks offense. They are so dynamic the way they have so many different guys that can step up and take over. That’s why they were a top offensive team all year long. Cat had a great game. Bridges had a great game. Anobi had a great game. Mitchell Robinson came in, dominated the boards. Everyone played at a high level and I was waiting for the Knicks to finally play the way they were capable of. They have not played well yet in this series until the second half and they are leading 31. One more win. They’ll be into the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 1999. You know all about what it’s like to play in this league. And everybody references male Bridges and what he’s been through. Josh Hart always seems to talk about the resilience of Bridges hanging in there when maybe he hasn’t been playing his best. Some of the noise around his play. How about his ability? Now, you look at Bridg’s playoff contribution, what he did against Detroit, what he did in the first two games of this series, and what he did tonight. I mean, this he’s arrived here as a New York Knick. There’s no debating his impact on this team. When you get traded to a new team, it’s a huge adjustment. It really is. It takes time to get comfortable in your new uniform. And Muel Bridges is there every single night. Never misses a game. And in the biggest moments, he has put in the work and prepared himself to have success when the lights are brightest. I mean, this guy absolutely has showed up big time in these playoffs defensively and then offensively. The unselfishness that he plays with, he never looks like he’s trying to chase shots, chase the ball. He plays completely within the team concept. everything that Tom Fibo Fibido talks about. Just take what the defense gives you, step up and make winning plays. That’s exactly what he has done this whole entire playoffs. And boy, does he have the clutch gene, too. You talk about Jaylen Brunson having the clutch gene. That Villanova clutch gene runs deep on this team and it is infusing into all these other guys. And what I love is you just see the intensity in him in the fourth quarter of this game. You see the intensity of him on make shots on on getting after a rebound on a putback. You saw that at the end of games one and two. Also the intensity on the defensive end. There’s something like when it’s win time. He all of a sudden turns it up a notch guys that have that right. It’s rebounding. He got every rebound in the second half. Every loose ball looked like KP had it. Nope. There goes Bridges. Knocks it out of his hands. Chases it down in the corner. Those are winning plays that Tom Thibido talks about and he made every single one in that second half. Got to mention Cats tonight too guys did a great job going and 11, right? And and was really really effective down low, which has not always been the case in this series. And I think his defense was better. I mean, he was switched off on some tough matchups and he made those guys work for their shots and work for their points. And that’s all you can do. Sometimes if you’re playing defense, don’t commit a dumb foul. just stay meat and potatoes solid. If a guy makes a tough shot, you deal with it. You try to push Tatum inside the three-point line. You don’t want to give him those step back threes because those threes hurt a lot more than the long twos. So, I think the Knicks have figured out that’s what we have to do with this team. We have to make them take tough twos and not take those threes. And as a result, they did that in the second half. And it was an incredible team effort defensively especially. That is something that you wonder if they are starting to learn as a series goes on. You’ve got to crowd them on the line. Don’t let him get comfortable. Let him go inside the line. I’d rather give up twos than threes. And they almost don’t want to take twos. So they’ll almost be looking to kick it out instead of taking the mid-range you’re given. Knicks snap a threeame home losing streak in these playoffs with the win and one more win and top divides into the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Knicks are 1 win away from the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 1999-2000 thanks to a 121-113 win over the Celtics in front of The Garden Faithful. Knicks Captain Jalen Brunson scored a series best 39 points and 12 rebounds in the Knicks win. The Knicks look to close out the series in Game 5 on the road in Boston.

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Knicks Put The Celtics On The Brink Of Elimination With Game 4 Win At The Garden | New York Knicks