Kristian Winfield: Knicks found answers to their biggest playoff test
NEW YORK — With just over seven minutes left in the third quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals and the Knicks trailing the Cleveland Cavaliers by nine, Jalen Brunson gave an impassioned speech — a cry for help — to his teammates on the sidelines. The gist of the message? It had to be along the lines of lock-in defensively against a Cavaliers team surgically dismantling the Knicks defense through the three periods.
Four minutes later, a deafening silence fell about Madison Square Garden: The Knicks suddenly found themselves down by 14. The Cavaliers began intentionally fouling Mitchell Robinson — a poor free-throw shooter who’d been New York’s most impactful defender on the night. And as Robinson proceeded to miss six out of his eight ensuing free throws, the Cavaliers took an 83-69 lead into the fourth quarter.
They went on to build a late-game lead as large as 22. And just when it looked like the Cavaliers were set to make off with the heist of a century, with the same theft of home-court advantage the Indiana Pacers pulled in the conference finals last season, Brunson let his game do the rest of the talking for him. He scored 15 points in the fourth quarter alone.
Mikal Bridges hit the two biggest corner 3s of his Knicks career. And Landry Shamet’s corner 3 bounced around the rim several times before falling through the net, completing an epic Cavaliers meltdown — and yet another historic Knicks comeback. “We don’t stop until the clock hits zero and shoutouts to our captain for holding it down for us,” Mikal Bridges said in his walk-off interview.
“We learned from our mistakes and came out here and didn’t want the same things to happen [as last year]. ” The Knicks, who came back from down 20 in Games 1 and 2 of their second-round series against the Boston Celtics last season, did it again on Tuesday. Only this time, the win moved them just three games shy of the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since 1999.