The New York Knicks (17-14) beat the Boston Celtics (26-9) in their home arena with 103:92. Kristaps Porzingis did not succeed at all in his comeback. But Michael Beasley did his best seasonal game and outshone the strong Kyrie Irving.
It was a classic wear-and-tear match of second good defensive teams. The Knicks started the game furiously and quickly took a double-digit lead, but Celtics remained in the game thanks to their lower bench and were down by only four points at the break.
After the change, it was Kyrie Irving who poured the Knicks Dreier around Dreier. Celtics broke away, but New York countered thanks to the outstanding Michael Beasley (32 points, 28 after the break, 13/20 FG, 12 rebounds) and so it went into the final section (68:68). That’s where Beasley continued where he left off. The Guard was cooking and Boston didn’t make it into their sets, mainly thanks to Rookie Frank Ntilikina’s (8) outstanding defence against Irving. Consequently, it was Beasley who won the race after a drive against Al Horford.
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Kristaps Porzingis spent an evening forgetting to forget and remained without a single field goal (1 point, 0/11 FG) in 23 minutes. Enes Kanter (14 points, 10 rebounds) had big problems with the Celtics during the rebound and delivered a good double-double.
Once again Kyrie Irving (32,12/27 FG) was the most diligent scorer for Celtics, but Uncle Drew also had problems scoring late in the game. Rookie Jayson Tatum (17) and Al Horford (10 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists) were also among the better guest players. Daniel Theis played 17 minutes and scored 7 points (3/8 FG) and 7 rebounds, but had problems against physical Kanter and Kyle O’ Quinn (8.7 rebounds)
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Michael Beasley. The first half of the Knicks belonged to Enes Kanter, after that it was Beasley who confronted Celtics with unsolvable problems. He searched patiently for his spots in the mail and let the ball run if necessary. He’s not really known for that. The audience in the MSG honored this and totally freaked out when the forward only touched the spalding. At the free-throw line there were even MVP-calls. He also closed the bag late, although he was strongly defended by Horford. Just as strong: Ntilikina’s defense against Irving.
Terry Rozier. Of course he had his moments, but Irving’s backup of Irving went crazy in many situations and did his team no favours. Furthermore, his cast selection (3 points, 1/7 FG) wasn’t always happy, he missed the free opponent several times. So the Celtics’ anyway not very good ball movement stagnated with him that night when he stood on the court. Also weak: Semi Ojeleye in direct duel with Beasley.
Since Porzingis had big problems, Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek stayed with his successful formation in the full fourth quarter, all bankers, even when Stevens returned the starters. It was the right decision, also because the audience frenetically cheered on the combination of Ntilikina-Baker-McDermott-Beasley-O’ Quinn. Accordingly, this quintet also had the best plus-minus values in their team (Beasley: +18 in 25 minutes).