Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson on Thursday kept the New York Knicks in the hunt for second place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference as they beat the Boston Celtics 112-106.
The tight Knicks victory in a playoff-style atmosphere at Madison Square Garden put New York two wins behind rivals Boston with just two regular-season games remaining.
Hart top-scored with 26 points, including a pair of clutch three-pointers in the final minute that took an evenly poised game out of the Celtics’ reach.
Photo: AP
In a match that featured 16 lead changes, Knicks superstar Brunson provided another standout performance, including 25 points and 10 assists.
Asked about teammate Hart, Brunson joked: “I don’t want to say anything too good about him right now, but he played really well.”
“We kept coming back and finding a way,” Brunson added.
Photo: AFP
The No. 2 spot means home-court advantage through to the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
The Knicks would have the tie-break advantage if the two teams finish level due to a superior head-to-head record this season.
Thursday’s win also gave the Knicks a one-win cushion over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In a possible preview of the Eastern playoffs second round, a back-and-forth first half featured 10 lead changes, with Payton Pritchard and Brunson scoring freely at opposite ends.
After the break the Knicks quickly opened up a 13-point lead. Yet they found themselves trailing at the end of the third quarter, as the Celtics rallied with seven three-pointers, including six from the bench.
The Celtics’ Baylor Scheierman was particularly potent from behind the arc, sinking his fifth and sixth three-pointers of the night to put Boston up 104-103 with barely two minutes left.
However, a Hart layup and a Brunson free throw restored the Knicks’ lead, before Hart finished the game off.
On an emotional return to the fabled Manhattan arena where he sustained a ruptured Achilles tendon nearly a year ago, Boston star Jayson Tatum top-scored for the Celtics with 24 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists.
Tatum has defied the odds to return this season, making his debut last month with the Celtics in the thick of the playoff race.
Trailing conference champions the Detroit Pistons, Boston remain favorites to clinch second, but they might have to secure the spot without Jaylen Brown, who missed Thursday’s clash with Achilles tendinitis.
Elsewhere, the incredibly tight race for the Eastern Conference’s final guaranteed playoff spots took yet more twists.
The top six automatically progress to the post-season, while teams finishing seventh to 10th must enter a knockout play-in tournament next week to join them.
The Toronto Raptors, boosted by Brandon Ingram’s 38 points, gained a valuable 128-114 win over the Miami Heat, rising from sixth to fifth.
That left the Raptors and the Atlanta Hawks one win clear of the in-form Orlando Magic — who have won their past four in a row.
However, the eighth-placed Philadelphia 76ers’ playoff hopes faded as they fell 113-102 to the red-hot Houston Rockets, who claimed an eighth consecutive victory.
fans in the West were denied a match-up between the two biggest NBA stars of the past decade as the Golden State Warriors rested Stephen Curry for medical reasons against LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers.
Facing the play-ins next week, the Warriors opted to give an extra recovery day to Curry, who had only recently returned from a 27-game knee injury absence.
The Lakers won 119-103 and James top-scored with 26 points, plus 11 assists and eight rebounds.
Elsewhere on Thursday, it was:
‧ Nets 94, Pacers 123
‧ Wizards 108, Bulls 119
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
RSS