AFTER THE FINAL buzzer sounded and the New York Knicks poured onto the Little Caesars Arena floor to celebrate their series-clinching Game 6 win over the Detroit Pistons, forward Mikal Bridges secured his headset for an interview with legendary play-by-play announcer Mike Breen.
Bridges had made one of the defining plays of the victory — a left-handed putback with 35 seconds left to tie the game before star teammate Jalen Brunson hit a stone-cold winning 3-pointer. Bridges, an eighth-year veteran wing, was still amped up when Breen asked about New York’s penchant for late-game drama.
“We built for this s—, man. That’s all it is. We built for it,” the usually mild-mannered Bridges said before Breen reminded him they were on live television.
FCC violations notwithstanding, it was impossible to argue with Bridges’ conclusion. That night, the Knicks rallied from a seven-point deficit with two and a half minutes remaining — a dramatic ending to a series in which the final four games were each decided by three points or fewer. It set the stage for a fascinating conference semifinal against the defending champion Boston Celtics, a matchup with every reason not to feature many clutch-time theatrics by New York.
During the regular season, the Celtics blitzed the Knicks by 23, 27 and 13 points, respectively, in the teams’ first three meetings. And even if the score got tight in the final minutes, no team in the league had a better clutch-time win percentage than the Celtics.
But the seemingly reinvigorated Knicks have shown incredible resolve in key, late-game moments, as demonstrated in their first-round tussle with Detroit and now against Boston. And despite the Celtics drilling New York by 22 points in Game 3, the Knicks threw them into fits when Games 1 and 2 went down to the wire after multiple 20-point leads vanished in front of the TD Garden crowd.
Led by defensive star Bridges — he came up with the winning stop in each win — and the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year in Brunson, New York indeed looks built to handle the high-pressure, in-the-mud sequences of the playoffs.
“I think it’s been a big help that we’ve gone through a lot of fire,” backup guard Deuce McBride said. “We walk through it together, and we come out of it on the other side with a win.”
But how did the Knicks cultivate such a consistent sense of calm amid late-game chaos? And, more importantly heading into Monday’s Game 4 in New York (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), will this fearless Knicks group get close enough in this series for it to matter again?
SOME TEAMS SHY away from the harsh lights. The Knicks seem to bask in them.
And New York’s playoff success in close games is far from a coincidence; the team has a number of unusual traits and pieces of connective DNA that make it a greater threat in those scenarios.
Clutch time, when the score is within five points in the final five minutes or in overtime, often features grinded-out possessions and isolation-heavy sets. Both aspects are analogous to the Knicks’ normal style of play. New York completed fewer than 98 possessions per 48 minutes during the regular season, one of the league’s five-slowest paces. Beyond that, it’s natural for the Knicks to trust Brunson with the ball in those late-game actions, considering he handled the ball for an NBA-high 8.6 minutes per game.
1:37
Greeny puts Jalen Brunson’s clutch-time greatness in perspective
Mike Greenberg calls Jalen Brunson the “most clutch player” in the NBA, questioning how the Mavericks let him leave for the Knicks.
It’s also noteworthy that, in the midst of the never-ending debate over minutes played by the Knicks’ starters, coach Tom Thibodeau’s starting five has played together more than any other unit in the NBA this season. New York has had ample opportunity for its group to jell, learning its responsibilities in all scenarios — huge leads, big deficits and, naturally, clutch situations.
It all ties into Thibodeau’s standard: Develop “a mental discipline to get through all the things that may happen” throughout an NBA season. And up and down the Knicks’ roster, plenty of players fit that mold, with a laundry list of intangibles to impact any game hanging in the balance.
Josh Hart, New York’s ultimate hustle player at just 6-foot-4, is a magician of sorts, having recovered an NBA-best 88 loose balls during the regular season. His instincts on the offensive glass — where defenders often fail to track him for boxouts after leaving him massive amounts of space as a subpar shooter from deep — garner the Knicks invaluable extra possessions.
“People always talk about offensive runs. Well, I think you can go on defensive runs as well. And rebounding runs,” Thibodeau said. “Josh is a prime example, where he can get four or five rebounds in a row, even if he isn’t making shots.”
The Knicks have been far more dominant rebounding on offense with Mitchell Robinson back in the lineup. The center didn’t make his debut until Feb. 28 because of ankle surgery.
New York secures almost 39% of its misses this postseason — a rate that would be the NBA’s best in the regular season and the playoffs. By contrast, the Knicks logged a merely average 29.9% offensive rebound rate without him.
Then there’s Bridges and OG Anunoby, two-way wings who have put their stamp on several clutch plays this season. Aside from each player hitting a game winner earlier in the campaign — Anunoby in Memphis and Bridges In Portland — they’ve been hugely impactful on defense. Anunoby is among the league leaders in deflections per contest, while Bridges has had an NBA-best total of five stocks (blocks plus steals) in the final 10 seconds of one-possession games. Two of those plays sealed Games 1 and 2 for the Knicks in Boston.
“Once we get it to within 10, we always have the belief that we can win,” Thibodeau said after the Game 2 victory over the Celtics.
But that rallying cry raises an uncomfortable reality for the upset-minded Knicks.
PERHAPS BRUNSON SAID it best Saturday after New York suffered its first loss of the series.
“We can’t consistently play catch-up against a team like this,” he said, acknowledging that the Knicks have less margin for error than the Celtics. “Against any NBA team, really, it’s tough for comebacks to happen. They are a great team, the defending champs.
“I just don’t think we want to be in a 20-point hole each game. It’s not going to suit us well.”
New York hasn’t shown it can beat Boston in anything but a nailbiter. Of the seven games they’ve played this season, Boston has held 20-point leads in six of them. For that reason, the Knicks’ ability to win a series they initially led 2-0 might be decided by whether they can stay competitive enough to steal two more contests in clutch time.
That strategy has plenty of roadblocks. Aside from the possibility of Karl-Anthony Towns‘ left hand being broken during Game 3, there’s also the fact that Robinson’s outstanding work on the glass is being hindered by Boston’s hacking strategy. Robinson has missed 16 of his 23 free throws in the series, including a pair of air balls in Game 3. Those misses have prompted Thibodeau to briskly sub out his center despite Robinson carrying a team-best plus-29 for the series — a whopping 27 points better than the next closest rotation player.
And the Knicks know their chances are even slimmer when Boston knocks down anything close to 50% of its 3s, the way it did in Game 3 after shooting just 25% across the first two matchups.
2:11
Celtics bounce back to thrash Knicks at MSG in Game 3
The Celtics get out to a hot start early and never look back in a 115-93 beatdown in Game 3 of their series.
But no team has a higher opponent turnover rate in the clutch than the Knicks so far this postseason. Pair that with another cold shooting spell from Boston, and it opens the door for New York, which has a more balanced shot profile while still owning one of the league’s best 3-point percentages for the season.
In all the talk of this season’s Knicks versus last season’s team, perhaps the notion of mental toughness has been lost. This team isn’t as consistent on defense or even quite as rugged as either of its past two iterations, which more resembled the franchise’s 1990s counterparts. (Forward Julius Randle, one of last season’s most physical Knicks, is enjoying the best postseason of his career with Minnesota.)
But the team’s ability to believe it can win is arguably stronger than before. The late-game confidence of Brunson, who finished the season with an NBA-best 52 clutch baskets despite missing a month of games, appears to be the biggest reason. It has reached a point where Brunson’s teammates believe that all of his key shots are going to fall.
“High-pressure situations don’t faze him. Doesn’t matter if he’s struggling or if he’s hooping, you’d never be able to tell,” Bridges said of Brunson the night the southpaw sent the Pistons packing with his series-ending 3. “Once he got that separation, I knew it was curtains.”
New York’s belief in Brunson and the surrounding group, all unfazed by late-game drama, has been apparent. The defining question of the series, though, is whether the Knicks have enough left in the tank to take the champs back to clutch time.
After all, they feel they’re built for it.
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