119-81 victory over the Boston Celtics<\/a> in Game 6 on Friday was a significant step, just not one the Knicks cared to celebrate.<\/p>\n\u201cThe goal is always to win a championship and so we\u2019ve got eight wins. You need 16, right? And each one gets harder and harder, so you\u2019ve got to keep fighting,\u201d Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said.<\/p>\n
The Knicks had a 2-0 lead in the series against the Pacers last year before they were decimated with injuries, and Indiana ran them off the floor in Game 7.<\/p>\n
New York then traded for Bridges shortly after the season and made a blockbuster move to acquire Karl-Anthony Towns from Minnesota just before the start of this one. It didn\u2019t appear those were going to be the final moves that built a championship team, as the Knicks finished 51-31, well behind Cleveland and Boston, and went a combined 0-8 against those teams.<\/p>\n
But they won\u2019t have to worry about the Cavaliers, who lost in five games to the Pacers, and completely turned things around against the Celtics. New York overcame 20-point deficits in the second halves of both games in Boston to open the series.<\/p>\n
The resolve the Knicks showed in those comebacks wasn\u2019t there during the regular-season matchups against the Celtics, when the first three were blowouts. But maybe the Knicks have found it just in time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in these situations, especially in the playoffs, we talk about that New York grit, that unrelentless belief that we will never lose,\u201d Towns said. \u201cAnd I think that this series, when you want to go deeper into the playoffs, you have to have that and we showed it this series and I think that was really special for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks were decided underdogs going into the series after the ease with which the Celtics handled them in the regular season. Boston obviously wasn\u2019t quite the same team after Jayson Tatum\u2019s ruptured Achilles tendon late in Game 4, but the Celtics were still the defending champions and felt they had enough to win even without their leading scorer. <\/p>\n
Instead, the Knicks were so dominant in Game 6 that Brunson was asked afterward if their victory in the series felt like an upset. <\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of what anyone thinks, upset or not, we\u2019re just happy to come out of this series with a win and moving on we\u2019ve got to prepare for another team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The New York Knicks nearly ended their lengthy Eastern Conference finals drought last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,75,588,126,288,77,563,581,1260,6,446,11,587,191,2331,589,66,1416],"class_list":{"0":"post-40352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-in-state-wire","11":"tag-indiana-pacers","12":"tag-jalen-brunson","13":"tag-jayson-tatum","14":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","15":"tag-ma-state-wire","16":"tag-mikal-bridges","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nba-basketball","19":"tag-nba-playoffs","20":"tag-new-york-city-wire","21":"tag-new-york-knicks","22":"tag-nj-state-wire","23":"tag-ny-state-wire","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-tom-thibodeau"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114526405535219926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40352","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=40352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}