The Knicks had all of the momentum in the world heading into Wednesday night\u2019s contest at TD Garden.<\/p>\n
Now, pressure is starting to mount for New York.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson and company made their latest trip to Boston with a commanding 3-1 second-round series lead over the Celtics. Furthermore, Game 5 marked the start of a run for a diminished version of the reigning NBA champions, who lost Jayson Tatum<\/a> to a ruptured Achilles<\/a> on Monday night.<\/p>\n But not only did the C\u2019s keep their season alive<\/a>, they stuffed the Knicks in a locker to the tune of a 25-point triumph<\/a> on Causeway Street. The lopsided verdict didn\u2019t sit well<\/a> with diehard New York fan Stephen A. Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very concerned,\u201d Smith said Thursday on ESPN\u2019s \u201cGet Up,\u201d as transcribed by<\/a> MassLive. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to win tomorrow night. You can\u2019t go back to Boston for a Game 7. You gotta close the deal tomorrow night. Show up! Show up!\u201d<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n Smith continued: \u201cI don\u2019t like what I saw. I have not seen the Boston Celtics move the basketball like that with Tatum on the floor. But without him, all of a sudden, they\u2019re sharing and they\u2019re caring. It concerns me. Because if they\u2019re sharing and caring, and they\u2019re making the threes, that\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Oddsmakers aren\u2019t terribly bullish about the Knicks\u2019 chances of finishing the job Friday night<\/a>. Even with New York on its home floor and Boston playing without Tatum, Tom Thibodeau\u2019s team is a slim 2.5-point betting favorite at FanDuel Sportsbook<\/a> for Game 6.<\/p>\n The Knicks also have yet to truly outclass the Celtics in this Eastern Conference semifinals set. Thus, there\u2019s a good chance Smith will be consumed with nerves for the majority of Friday\u2019s matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks had all of the momentum in the world heading into Wednesday night\u2019s contest at TD Garden.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,6,2603],"class_list":{"0":"post-37020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-stephen-a-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114517546457463934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}