The Knicks take down the Boston Celtics in Madison Square Garden to advance to their first Conference Finals in 25 years.
In emphatic fashion, the New York Knicks booked their first trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 25 years.
No drama, just 48-minute celebration at Madison Square Garden. It was a straight beatdown of the defending champion Boston Celtics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, a 119-81 victory in which the Knicks tied their biggest lead in any game this season (41 points).
Six Knicks scored in double-figures and Josh Hart recorded his first career playoff triple-double (10 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists). But it was the defense that stood out, especially given how the last few games had gone on that end of the floor.
Here are some notes, quotes, numbers and film as the Knicks clinched a playoff series at home for the first time since 1999.
1. Knicks’ defense plays its best at the best time
Games 3-5 of this series were, statistically, the Knicks’ worst three-game stretch of defense this season (129.6 points allowed per 100 possessions). And it was only a huge offensive half that got them a win in Game 4 and three chances to close out this series.
Game 6 was probably the best defense the Knicks have played all season. When a couple of non-rotation guys checked in for the Celtics with 1:49 left in the third quarter, they had scored just 51 points on 69 possessions (0.74 per). That rate would have been the fourth-worst offensive game for any team this season (regular season or playoffs).
Boston was without Jayson Tatum and Kristaps Porziņģis has not been himself all series, but the Celtics showed in Game 5 that they could still score efficiently with what they had left.
For the Knicks, that loss was more about poor defense. And from the way Game 6 went, they’re probably right. The Celtics took some bad shots on Friday, but the Knicks also forced them into some tough ones.
“The way we prepared,” Jalen Brunson said, “the way we talked out there, the way we made it an emphasis to have each other’s back and continue to fight for each other, it’s focused on the defensive side of the ball. When we’re doing that, the offense … we’re flowing.”
Good (and bad) defense starts in transition, and the Knicks made sure they weren’t giving the Celtics easy buckets or open 3-point attempts in the open floor. After scoring 80 points on 52 transition possessions (1.54 per) in Games 3-5, the Celtics had just 16 on 25 (0.64 per) in Game 6, according to Synergy tracking.
“Our team commitment in defensive transition,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, “guys were covering for each other. They were communicating really well, and they understood what we had to take away in order to win.”
2. Robinson is a difference-maker
The Knicks won this series with their heavily used starting lineup getting outscored by 24 points in its 121 minutes.
Their bench doesn’t get many minutes, but it was the league’s ninth-ranked bench in the regular season, and one particular reserve made all the difference in this series.
Mitchell Robinson missed the first 58 games of the season, not making his season debut until Feb. 28. And with the Knicks having a bottom-10 defense at that point, it seemed clear that their biggest offseason loss was that of Isaiah Hartenstein, a big man who could do the dirty work.
Well, Robinson is healthy now, and Hartenstein’s departure feels a lot less important. In fact, Robinson was so important on defense and on the offensive glass that the Celtics tried often to get him off the floor by fouling him intentionally. That worked a couple of times, but the Knicks’ back-up center still made a huge impact.
In the series, the Knicks were 30 points per 100 possessions better with Robinson on the floor (plus-18.1) than they were with him off the floor (minus-11.9), with huge differentials on both offense and defense.
And in Game 6, he authored the Knicks’ signature defensive possession.
In the span of seven seconds (and in transition), he rotated to every Celtic on the floor, eventually closing out to Jaylen Brown in the left corner. He absolutely smothered Brown and then ripped the ball out of his hands:
Robinson played just 13 1/2 minutes on Friday, but the Knicks outscored the Celtics by 20 points in that time.
3. The offense is better when everybody contributes
You don’t win by 38 without success on both ends of the floor, and Game 6 was the Knicks’ second most efficient offensive performance of the playoffs.
Brunson (23 points on 8-for-14 shooting, six assists) can certainly carry them at times, but he didn’t have to do too much on Friday, with OG Anunoby (23), Mikal Bridges (22) and Karl-Anthony Towns (21) also eclipsing the 20-point mark.
Towns shot just 1-for-6 from 3-point range, finishing 3-for-19 (16%) in the series. But he was strong inside as the Knicks outscored the Celtics by 36 points in the paint (48-34) or at the free throw line (19-7).
Some of that was Towns going to work (in the post and on the glass) against smaller defenders:
And some of it was taking advantage of the attention paid to Brunson:
But in either case, Towns was engaged and aggressive.
In the conference finals, the Indiana Pacers will (probably) more often guard Towns with a center than the Pistons or Celtics, who chose to put their centers on Hart. That could get Towns better looks from beyond the arc, though the Knicks will still need him to play big on both ends of the floor.
4. Knicks finally get a comfortable win
Six of the Knicks’ first seven playoff wins were within three points in the last five minutes, and the one exception was Game 1 of the first round, when they trailed the Pistons by eight early in the fourth quarter and then went on a 21-0 run.
So this was their first comfortable win of the postseason. And though it was by 38 points, the total score of the conference semis was Knicks 634, Celtics 631. Prior to Game 6, New York had been outscored by 27 points over its 11 playoff games.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau wasn’t taking any chances with the score on Friday, keeping at least two starters on the floor until the 4:22 mark of the fourth quarter, even though the lead never got below 30 after the first four minutes of the second half. The Celtics, on the other hand, went to non-rotation guys with a little less than two minutes left in the third period.
Fortunately, no injuries were suffered. And because they were able to avoid Game 7, the Knicks will have three full days off (with no travel) before opening the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers at home on Wednesday.
“It was definitely one of our better performances, but I still feel like we have a long way to go,” Brunson said. “We continue to be unsatisfied.”
5. Celtics will have some tough decisions to make this summer
Inside the NBA: What’s next for Jayson Tatum after injury?
Anything (even a 38-point blowout) can happen on any given night, but it remains stunning that the Celtics’ title defense is over this early.
Last year’s Celtics were one of the most dominant teams we’ve ever seen, finishing with the fifth-best point differential (regular season and playoffs combined) in NBA history. And they ran it back, returning every rotation player from that team.
But they never hit the same level that they reached in last year’s postseason run. Then they suffered two stunning collapses in the first two games of this series. Even then, it wasn’t hard to find observers who thought they’d eventually prevail against an opponent that they had otherwise dominated over the last two years.
But they blew another big lead in Game 4, and then Jayson Tatum suffered a devastating Achilles tear.
That injury changes the outlook for the Celtics’ offseason, because, unless they’re confident that Tatum will be back at 100% in 10 months or less, next year’s group won’t be the same level of title contender that they’ve been these last two seasons.
But, with contract extensions for Tatum, Derrick White and Sam Hauser kicking in, they will be more expensive, even if they don’t bring back free agents Al Horford and Luke Kornet. So it’s possible that the Celtics will choose to sell off other veterans to lower their luxury tax bill.
Tatum and Brown are still just 27 and 28 years old, respectively, so the Celtics’ championship window will extend well beyond next season. But if there’s another title in their future, it will likely come with a somewhat different supporting cast.
“Losing to the Knicks feels like death,” Brown said. “But I was always taught that there’s life after death. So we’ll get ready for whatever’s next.”
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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