New York Knicks Excel in Game 6 Against Boston Celtics

SportsGrid

Watch New York Knicks Excel in Game 6 Against Boston Celtics - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00The advantage it felt that New York had, above all else, was the ability to close.

00:05Because Boston's championship run last year, the banner hangs forever, don't worry,

00:12was one of the main stories is how every single team they played was significantly mismatched

00:17through injury, not having their best player.

00:21You watch this series, and if the Knicks did not have Jalen Brunson, right?

00:25And the Knicks got contributions all over the court.

00:28But if they didn't have Brunson closing down the stretch, Brunson didn't even lead the comebacks.

00:33Brunson was on the bench during the comebacks.

00:35J.J. Redick must have been stunned.

00:37Like Tom Thibodeau was playing his guys less than J.J. Redick was.

00:41But then Brunson came out fresh and was nails as Boston was still scrambling for those answers.

00:49But what I thought the Knicks flashed in Game 6 was incredibly important for at least myself

00:56to trying to view them entering this series.

01:00Winning close is fantastic, but you cannot make a living doing it, in my opinion.

01:05And the Knicks, separating to the degree that they did against Boston in Game 6,

01:09shows that now it's a lot more than just we're having a great run.

01:14The Celtics, and now I will give you your time here, J.Y., or excuse me,

01:18the Knicks have to feel like we are actually playing our best basketball right now.

01:24It's the best 48 minutes the Knicks have played this postseason, and it wasn't even close.

01:31And going into Game 6, my actual thought process was,

01:35I don't want to see Jalen Brunson shoot the ball 25 times.

01:40I want to see if other guys get involved.

01:44What happens with the Knicks is when you have contributions up and down the starting line,

01:49they legitimately have five guys that can get you 20.

01:52Legitimately.

01:53I don't think people, you know, and that's maybe part of their problem,

01:56is the fact that they're so top-heavy.

01:59But when you have guys that are in rhythm, catching the ball, OG,

02:03Mikel Bridges has looked like in the last week found his mid-range game,

02:08and he looks more like the Phoenix Suns Mikel Bridges that we saw

02:13when he was the number three scorer and the pressure was off him.

02:17Cat played completely different in Game 6.

02:21They went small to guard him, and the big boy said,

02:23all right, you're going to take away the three.

02:25Now I'm just going to drive the ball to the basket.

02:27You don't have a rim protector there because obviously Porzingis is not himself,

02:31and I'm going to get to the rim.

02:32Josh Hart was Josh Hart.

02:34But to me, the two guys that brought so much energy last night

02:41were Deuce McBride and Mitchell Robinson.

02:43People looked at all series.

02:45And listen, I got caught with this myself as someone that said I liked the Celtics.

02:49I said I liked the Celtics.

02:50But one of the reasons why I thought New York was going to get at least two

02:54was because of the fact that the three games that the Knicks got blown at

02:57earlier in the year versus Boston, Mitchell Robinson was not there.

03:01He is such a big difference maker to what they do.

03:04There was a play, I want to say in the second quarter,

03:07where I saw Mitchell Robinson, as a coach,

03:09you talk about guys playing, doing multiple things, right?

03:13Multiple things, like close out, then go to someone else.

03:15It doesn't happen much.

03:16I think Mitchell Robinson guarded three people and one possession,

03:20and then took the ball from Jalen Brown in the corner and said,

03:23when I saw that, I was like, okay, well, this game looks different.

03:26But Deuce McBride, who struggled in the first-round series versus Detroit,

03:30shot really well when he hit that chase-down block.

03:36Yeah.

03:36At that point, I was like, this game is over.

03:38Because their energy levels were in another planet.

03:42Boston knew they were in trouble, Tom.

03:44But the most important thing is they fed off of their crowd,

03:48and in that third quarter, when Boston could have made a run,

03:51the Knicks just put that one last run together to put the game away.

Category

Transcript

Recommended