That was - beautiful!
I know, I know... winning a quarter 13-12 doesn't sound THAT pretty, but for Knicks fans it was, because the team had already done the damage to the Celtics in the third quarter and held Boston to a franchise low 23 points in the second half - after holding them to a then franchise low 25 points in the second half in Game 1.
The Knicks did in the first two games of their first round series against the Celtics exactly what you should do: never let the opposition catch fire over an extended period, so they don't even return home with a moral victory of playing a good fourth quarter or feeling like the outcome of those two games could've easily have gone the other way. No way! The Knicks locked in totally on the defensive end after some half time adjustments for the second time in a row, which is a great sign for things to come, because it shows how focused this Knicks group led by veterans all over the place is.
It was Diddy night as you can see (and hear) in the highlights:
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The Knicks came already out strong defensively in the first quarter, allowing just six Celtics points in the first six minutes of playing time (11-6). The Celts recovered though and got shortly a 20-18 lead. A nice 8-0 spurt to finish the quarter on a Kidd three and two difficult Smith jumpers (you saw the one in the highlights with unlimited range) gave the Knicks a feel good 26-20 lead after one quarter. Getting lackadaisical in the second quarter, the Knicks faithful saw a 16 point turnaround from a 27-20 lead to a 39-48 deficit, before scoring the last three points before intermission.
But then... the third quarter was such a thing of beauty! There is this word again: beautiful! Two Iman Shumpert threes (one in the highlights) brought the Knicks back and with the momentum swinging, the Knicks starters didn't look back and completed a 20 point turnaround from being down six to leading by 14 (68-54) with roughly four minutes to play in the third quarter. Game! With the kind of defense the Knicks displayed once again, there was no coming back for the Celtics this time.
Instrumental in holding that lead was Kenyon Martin with 5 rebounds and 4 block shots in the fourth quarter that made every Knicks fan forget the 13-12 score in that period. Instead of groaning in unity, we all sang the praises together:
The result was that for the first time in the shot clock era an opponent got hold to 25 or less points in the second halves of two consecutive games.H20Knick wrote:ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
kenyon martin is mean
- KG SUCKS! BOSTON SUCKS! PAUL PIERCE SUCKS! The intense Garden was everything a home team can hope for in a playoff game.
Right from the beginning:
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- Carmelo Anthony staying in "a man on a mission" mode. Still with room to improve the Knicks leader got hot in the second half again and is arguably having his best start into the playoffs averaging so far a PER of 31.36.
- the activity on the defensive end, to me exemplified of course by Martin's play but even more so by the lateral movement of our guards, especially Shump who should've made Diddy proud.
- J.R. Smith getting the sixth man of the league award.
- Steve Novak getting schooled on the defensive end by guys like Jordan Crawford in switch situations.
- still not as sharp ball movement as we saw during the stretch run.
- still very few easy points and basically nothing in the paint.
After winning 54 games mostly on offense, the Knicks start the 2013 playoffs with a defensive ferocity not seen in these parts since the Jeff Van Gundy days.
Usually role players play better at home, but so far we haven't seen much from the guys that round out our rotation. Copeland and/or Novak are due to contribute something and I hope that at least one of them will come through for us in one of the next two games on the road, because we all now that those guys getting hot can help us to blow a game open and in this case taking a commanding third win.
The next game in Boston is on Friday. Our first opportunity to get that third win. If we do it, our probability to win the series goes up from 78% before game one, over 88% after game one and 94% after game two to the full 100%, because not once has a team in the NBA playoffs come back from an 0-3 deficit.
