The New York Knicks narrowly avoided an epic collapse against the Boston Celtics on Sunday, earning a hard-fought 96-92 victory to beat out the Atlanta Hawks for the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference. The fourth-seeded Knicks will now have home-court advantage over the fifth-seeded Hawks in the first round of the playoffs.
It looked like the Knicks were going to cruise to victory over the shorthanded Celtics when they went up by 21 points in the third quarter. However, Boston went on a frantic 15-0 run in the fourth quarter to cut a 17-point deficit to two with just over three minutes to play.
Julius Randle finally got New York back on the board with a driving layup, but the Celtics then cut the margin to one point moments later. A Reggie Bullock bucket, some big Nerlens Noel blocks and a Randle free throw helped close out the game.
This Noel block was especially rude:
N🚫EL pic.twitter.com/pe4dBjeTOy
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) May 16, 2021
RJ Barrett led the Knicks with 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Randle didn't have the most efficient outing, scoring 20 points on 5-of-17 shooting, but he did add seven rebounds and seven assists.
The Celtics didn't have all of their top guys, so they had little business being in this game. Things were going as expected for much of the second half until the game turned in the fourth quarter. Tremont Waters played a key role in the late surge, leading Boston with 17 points in 25 minutes off the bench. Waters was a team-best plus-20.
With the regular season now in the books, the Knicks will look ahead to their first-round matchup against Trae Young and the Hawks, while the Celtics will be playing the Washington Wizards in the play-in tournament on Tuesday night. That play-in game is going to be absolutely fascinating given how the two teams have been playing.
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