The New York Knicks may have overcome the Detroit Pistons in a six-game series thriller, but the reward for their troubles was a second-round matchup against the reigning champion Boston Celtics. This did not bode well for the Knicks. After all, they lost all four of their regular-season matchups against the Celtics, and three of those defeats came in blowout fashion. But in Game 1, the Knicks had their sweet revenge, coming back from 20 down to take a 108-105 win in overtime.

This just goes to show that regular-season results are not an indicator of how a playoff series would go. And with this win, the Knicks are feeling even more confident, with Jalen Brunson continuing to implore his team to leave the past behind and focus on what they can control.

“You got to move on [from the past]. Put what's in the past in the past and move on to the next one, simple as that,” Brunson said in his postgame interview with TNT's Allie LaForce.

This exact mentality is what makes Brunson such a force to be reckoned with come playoff time. He doesn't allow the highs and lows of the past affect him and how he approaches the next game, and the Knicks have been taking after this mindset of his, allowing them to weather the storm and bounce back from a 20-point deficit.

Of course, in Game 2, the Celtics will not be as lax in protecting a lead as they were in Game 1. The Knicks will have to prepare for a much more aggressive Boston team that shot 60 three-point attempts in Game 1, and they will have to make sure that they don't fall behind by as many as 20 points, putting themselves on the backfoot unnecessarily.

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks keep fighting

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Some are wondering when the wheels are going to fall off for the Knicks. Head coach Tom Thibodeau is playing his best players an inordinate number of minutes, with Mikal Bridges even playing 51 out of a possible 53 minutes on Monday night.

But Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are going to keep on grinding, and with the Celtics being a heavy favorite in this series, the pressure to win moving forward won't necessarily be on New York's shoulders.

“We just kept fighting. We told each other, ‘Keep believing.' And we just found a way,” Brunson said.

Game 2 of the series will be on Wednesday night at 7 PM E.T.