Knicks 91, Celtics 90: “What they gonna say now?”

Larry Bird is not walking through that door

Once upon a time, a hare and a tortoise held a race. Of course the hare was heavily favored, and when the race began it raced out of of sight, out to a seemingly insurmountable lead. But the hare lost its momentum and the tortoise kept on keeping on, one step at a time, leading to a photo finish that went to the tortoise. This was on a Monday.

That Wednesday, a rematch was held. Most of the animals expected the hare to win in a rout — no way it’d repeat the fatal error of the first race — but praised the tortoise and felt it should hold its head up high. After all, a split was better than it could possibly have hoped for.

Against all odds, the hare once again got way out in front. It took the tortoise a bit longer the second time around to find its way into first place, and once again the race came down to the very end. The tortoise’s favorite basketball player happened to be Mikal Bridges, and so like his idol when victory was finally within reach, it snatched it.

Oh, my bad. That was Bridges Monday. This was last night.

Two second-half sequences you won’t find clips of tomorrow captured the spirit of the New York Knicks’ 91-90 oops-they-did-it-again comeback win over the Boston Celtics.

Late in the third quarter the Celtics were up 20 when OG Anunoby tried to attack Jaylen Brown off the dribble. Jayson Tatum poked the ball away from OG to Brown, and the two Js and Payton Pritchard got out on a 3-on-2. Two roads diverged ahead of Tatum, the ballhandler, and he had to be sorry he couldn’t choose both. Pritchard was completely wide-open in the bottom corner, while Brown was flying toward the hoop with no one but the shorter and more gravity-bound Josh Hart in his way. Tatum threw him a bounce pass, but Brown couldn’t handle it and it went out of bounds.

Boston was that close to an emphatic dunk putting them up 22 with a chance to bump it to 25-30 by the end of the frame. Instead, a combination of the Knicks’ resistance and the Celtics’ failings kept them from piling on. Three minutes later, the quarter ended after a Hart 3 sandwiched by a Deuce McBride dunk and 3-ball capped an 8-0 run that pulled New York within 12. The final step, the one that that wins the race, can’t happen until the step that precedes it occurs, nor that step until after its predecessor, and so on and so forth. The Knicks once again trailed most of the night, often by double-digits, but cut the gap to a manageable size entering the fourth. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

A couple minutes into the fourth, Al Horford scored a basket and promptly stole Hart’s attempted inbounds. Manners cost nothing, so when Horford drove to the cup Hart — six inches shorter — stuffed him. Emotions were high, and swirling, and the loose ball was a whisker away from Tatum’s grasp. Had he corralled it in all that mayhem the Celtics could have gone up 18, 19. But Anunoby dove to the floor, came up with it and seconds later it was flying out of Mikal Bridges’ hands, tickling the twine and cutting the gap to 13 instead of 19.

The Knicks won their biggest game in 26 years last night the same way they won Game 1 and most games they’ve won since Tom Thibodeau arrived: they’re relentless and widespread. Everyone who played did something essential. Through three quarters, with Bridges and Jalen Brunson struggling for a combined 3-of-21 shooting and just eight points, Hart had 21, including three 3s. That kept the hare in sight until Bridges exploded for all 14 of his points in the fourth, the majority against defensive demigod Jrue Holiday. Brunson didn’t have the greatest night of his life, but he’s the last dude you gotta worry about showing up when it counts; his Dirk-legged fadeaway with two minutes to go gave the Knicks their first lead of the night.

With a little under nine minutes left, a Pritchard 3 had the Knicks down 16 and on the verge of being TKO’d. Over the next eight minutes and change:

• Brown tried to go at OG and missed (not as easy picking on someone your own size, is it?)
• Pritchard missed a 3
• Horford missed a wide-open corner 3
• Horford tried going at Karl-Anthony Towns and was reminded 2016 was a while ago
• Derrick White missed an open 3
• In a Trumpian-level act of incompetence, the officials missed both White fouling Brunson on a 3 and the 24-second violation they should have called after Brunson’s shot missed the rim; instead, White was able to get out in transition and get to the line after being fouled by Hart
• White missed a semi-contested 3
• Tatum missed an open corner 3
• Brown missed an open 3
• Tatum missed a baseline fadeaway over OG
• Brown missed in the paint over Brunson
• Brunson fouled White cutting to the hoop (we’ll return to this in a sec)
• Brown missed a pull-up over Brunson; White missed the follow

By the time Boston finally broke through and scored on a Tatum 90-foot drive and dunk, they’d gone from up 84-68 to up 90-89. In the fable the hare never reclaims the lead, as far as we know, though maybe the version we know is sanitized. The old stories are always darker than we remember; maybe, like the Celtics, the hare knew the exquisite pain of the fake comeback, edging in front near the end only to lose the lead one last time. I wonder what the animal kingdom version is of late-game Brunson.

A moment whose magnitude became obvious after its occurrence came with a little less than three minutes remaining. Mitchell Robinson, the longest-tenured Knick — who never played a better bigger game before last night’s — was fouled intentionally by Boston coach Jimmy Neutron. The specter of the dreaded, hackneyed Hack-A-Mitch neared, and coming a few minutes after he airballed a free throw — and it wasn’t even that close — ‘twas a scary prospect indeed. Tom Thibodeau was about to replace him with Anunoby, but held off. At that point Boston had committed three team fouls, and Joe Mazzulla took the bait: Mitch stayed in, they fouled him again, and only then did Thibs send in OG, knowing the Knicks would be in the bonus the rest of the way.

And boy did that come in handy! A study in contrasts: with a little over a minute left and the Knicks up one, the Celtics were pushing up the floor. Brunson was the only thing standing between a cutting White and the Celtics re-taking the lead. Brunson fouled White, which worked out since the Knicks had one to give. When Holiday fouled Brunson with 12 seconds left, it sent him to the line — it was a shooting foul anyway, but maybe Holiday would have approached that possession differently if he’d had some wiggle room.

Another benefit from that substitution became immediately apparent. On New York’s first possession with OG back, Tatum had to stay near him to respect his 3-point shot. That left the midrange almost entirely open for Hart to sneak into and drive to the cup, drawing two Celtic defenders and leaving Towns in position to cash in a follow-up and-1. Tom Thibodeau’s gone up against the Coach of the Year runner-up and the man leading the defending champs in these playoffs and has taken a backseat to neither. Nor has his team’s defense.

When Tatum broke the C’s scoreless run to put them up one in the final minute, he started driving toward Anunoby but got Mitch on a switch with too much space between the two defenders and blew right past him for the dunk. On the last possession of the game, Tatum tried the same move, but this time the Knicks’ best paint and perimeter defenders stayed close, able to stay with him long enough to force him toward Bridges, their next-best defender. I doubt anyone would have predicted how this game went, but if you’d told most Knick fans it’d end with Tatum trying his luck against Mitch/Mikal/OG they’d take their chances.

And just like that, it’s a brand new season. This was the ECF matchup many of us dreamed of back when these teams met in October. It’s come a round earlier, but the stakes are still enormous. The Knicks are up 2-0 on the best team in the league. Monday they gave up 44 points in the second half and overtime; last night it was only 40. The Celtics have taken 100 3s. They’ve made 25. Everyone and their mother thought that was the shooting performance that would reverse; instead, it was the Knicks going from 17-of-31 at the line to a brief but blissfully forgettable 8-of-10. The Knicks are two wins away from the ECF.

THE KNICKS ARE TWO WINS FROM THE ECF.

I’ve only shed a tear twice in my life after a Knick win. The first was in 1999, when they beat the Pacers to advance to the Finals. The other was last night. It’s not any one thing; it’s everything. It’s this team. It’s who they’re beating. It’s how they’re doing it. It’s the slowly dawning realization that with how the other series is going, New York could be hosting the ECF for the first time since 1994. Anything special happen that year in Knick history?

When I first turned the game on, the Knicks were down 16-4 eight minutes in. My takeaway was not “Ewww.” It was, “The Celtics are only scoring two points a minute. The defense is holding; the shooting will come around.” At no point in the second half, neither down 20 in the third nor 16 in the fourth, did I think they couldn’t win. And I don’t think that’s because of anything having to do with the Celtics. I think it’s because of these Knicks.

In a time when the kings of the earth are doubling down on mistaking what is for what’s right, there is hope to be taken anywhere we’re reminded that the impossible and the improbable are always happening all around us, always nearer than we’re led to believe. I think that’s part of what broke in me after the win. There are days I don’t know what to make of this country, this world, this life. Undoubtedly too much time online only adds to that anxiety. But I find reassurance in daily reminders that what is shall pass, and what’s right still matters most to so many.

Let me close with one hard-earned bit of wisdom I acquired in 1992. Then, as now, the Knicks won 51 games, then pulled out an emotional gut check five-game series win over a physical, whiny Pistons team. In the next round the Knicks faced the defending champs in their building and shocked the world by taking Game 1. And they, and we as fans (at least me as a 13-year-old) were satisfied. They’d gotten the split. Didn’t matter if they won Game 2; just come home, baby. MSG makes molehills outta mountains. The Knicks back then even used to talk about that, openly; in ‘93 after they were up 2-0 and then lost Games 3 and 4 in Chicago, Patrick Ewing was explicit about it — he didn’t care. All they had to do was win at home. Which . . . they didn’t.

These Celtics are not those Bulls — I don’t think they are, anyway. But they were the best road team in the league this season (33-8), and for what it’s worth already won twice in New York. After the Game 1 win I said the Knicks needed to keep going, to not let the Celtics off the ropes. THAT GOES DOUBLE FOR GAME 3.

Win that one and one way or another, this series is 99% over. Win and the C’s are one game away from a catastrophic end to their season. Lose, and the defending champs are one win away from making it a best-of-3 after reclaiming homecourt advantage. That’s what deep playoff runs distill down to — agony or ecstasy. Like the Celtic offense, there’s no midrange.

Those of you too young to have seen the 1970s or 1990s Knicks, do make it a point to tune in from the jump of Saturday’s Game 3. There isn’t an arena in the Association as amped as MSG when the Knicks are awesome. There will be thunderous chants of “D-FENSE!” The officials better know whatever marching orders Adam Silver and his media partners give them as far as extending the series, the foreman on-site are the 19,000-ish Knick fans in attendance. Knick greats will be in the building. Knick randos will be in the building. Hope will be, too, in a way it hasn’t been seen (or heard, especially) in a loooong time.

The tortoise just keeps chugging. It’s all he knows how to do. Let the pundits and peons continue to insist what’s happening is all about the Celtics and not about the Knicks. Quoth marcus7, “What they gonna say now?” Let ‘em squawk. The hare looks a mess while the tortoise has won five straight playoff races, all on the road. Some say the best things come to those who wait. 52 years later, it’s starting to feel like the delay was worth it.