After Game 1 win, Knicks' blueprint with Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart is clear

New York Times

06-05-2025

BOSTON — The most unforgiving 3-point-shooting team in history needed just one deep ball to tie a score that once seemed like a surefire blowout. Protecting a narrow lead, a veteran defender chose not to even look at the basketball.
He had the offense just where he wanted it.
The Boston Celtics ran a play that sent All-Star wing Jaylen Brown swerving from the sideline and tossed basketball's version of a fade route his way. The squad that broke the record for 3-point makes and 3-point attempts in a single season could have tied it with one shot from beyond the arc. It never got the chance to try one, thanks to New York Knicks cornerback Mikal Bridges.
Advertisement
As Brown fielded the inbounds, his defender, Bridges, wrestled the pass away from him, sticking one of his selfie-stick arms between Brown's torso and the ball and tearing it out of his palms. Bridges chucked the ball downcourt, running the final ticks off the clock as the Knicks hung on for an improbable 108-105 victory on the same night they had trailed the Celtics by 20 with just over 17 minutes remaining in regulation.
mikal's impact down the stretch in Game 1 was MAJOR ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/9wG2h8wXnu
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) May 6, 2025
The Knicks now lead their second-round series with Boston 1-0.
This was a classic interception — form even prime Darrelle Revis would care to emulate. The basketball was out of sight. The steal, however, was not.
As the pass soared over Bridges' head, he fixated not on the ball; instead, he locked in on Brown.
'I was just watching his eyes,' Bridges said. 'I'm a football fan.'
Bridges fends off comparisons to Revis and Sauce Gardner not because those two are too grandiose but because of his loyalties. Bridges is a Los Angeles Rams fan. To him, this was ripped from the playbook of his favorite cornerback, Ahkello Witherspoon.
Considering the limitations of the human eye, Bridges can't watch two moving objects in two places, his man and the ball, at the same time. The fundamentals say he should focus on where Brown looks. That way, he knows where the potential shooter is while also giving himself a chance to read when the pass might arrive.
'I'm just watching (Brown's) eyes and following where the ball is at. (I'm) trying to get my hands up as soon as I see the ball because we're up by 3, so we're trying to foul,' Bridges said. 'Just trying to get the ball and see where his eyes are going to lead me and get the ball.'
This time, it inspired a game-sealing interception.
Advertisement
On a night when Bridges could not buy a bucket, when even his corner 3-pointer that gave the Knicks a 6-point advantage with 2:30 to go in overtime somehow defied the laws of physics and banked in, he made up for it on the other end. Once again, after a series of rugged defense against the Detroit Pistons, whom the Knicks beat in Round 1, the Knicks' perimeter defenders, including Bridges, saved them.
This must be what the team envisioned when it paired Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart together, hoping the trio could stifle scorers enough to insulate two offense-slanted All-Stars: Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. After all, the Bridges-Anunoby-Hart combination made more than just one late play.
In overtime, with the score tied at 100, Brown squared up Towns alone on the left side of the court, a mismatch against the big-footed 7-footer. As Brown drove to his left, Bridges bolted off his man, Al Horford, from the corner and knocked the ball loose. Brown recovered it and tried to fire a pass to Horford, but Bridges deflected it again, falling out of bounds, turning around in the air and throwing a dart to Hart as if he were impersonating Derek Jeter's jump throw.
Hart led the fast break, which ended in an Anunoby two-handed slam, plus a foul.
Three wings — Bridges, Hart and Anunoby — combined to put the Knicks up by 3. They never trailed again.
mikal ➡️ josh ➡️ OG SLAM 💥 pic.twitter.com/32LURK0gfH
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) May 6, 2025
'Those are big-time toughness plays,' head coach Tom Thibodeau said.
Maybe the Knicks are just a big-time toughness team now. They took figurative fists to the jaw against the Pistons and replied with uppercuts to the belly. They entered Monday as supreme underdogs, having dropped all four matchups against the defending-champion Celtics this season. The first three defeats were annihilations. The fourth occurred after Boston had already clinched the second-best record in the conference.
Advertisement
The Knicks trailed 75-55 with 5:40 to go in the third quarter Monday but took only 10 minutes to tie the score, a 31-11 explosion that bled into the final period. The play that knotted the score, of course, was thanks to the wings.
Anunoby trailed behind perennial top-five MVP candidate Jayson Tatum, then swarmed him, tapping Tatum's dribble up to the court, picking up the loose ball and racing the other way for a dunk. Anunoby finished with 29 points and shot 6-of-11 from deep.
Brunson helped the comeback, dropping 11 points and hitting three 3s during a five-minute stretch in the fourth quarter, when the Knicks held on for dear life.
When the Knicks got stops, they looked to run, especially after Boston's many missed 3-pointers. The Celtics are committed to the bit. Whether they are hot or cold, they will keep throwing up long balls. Monday, they missed 45 of 60 attempts.
Anunoby sprinted ahead of the defense constantly.
The Knicks might not be the favorites to move on to their first conference finals in 2 1/2 decades after just one victory. Boston clanking so many 3s probably won't happen again. The Celtics lost starting center Kristaps Porziņģis midway through the game because of an illness. Rotation regular Sam Hauser sprained his ankle, too. Tatum settled for pull-up 3 after pull-up 3, even as featured opponents such as Towns dealt with foul trouble.
The Celtics struggled, but the Knicks were imperfect, too.
Bridges' jumper went cold. Towns had to sit for long stretches with the fouls. Mitchell Robinson missed free throws aplenty as Boston intentionally fouled him throughout the game. Other Knicks who shouldn't err on freebies did. At one point, Precious Achiuwa, who had not previously played a second of playoff basketball, had to enter the game.
The good for New York was the wings.
Advertisement
These three were supposed to make competing with the Celtics tenable. For much of the season, especially as Boston decimated them, the vision looked blurry. But after one second-round playoff game — and following a series in which Bridges, Anunoby and Hart pestered the Pistons — the blueprint is as clear as it's been all season.
(Photo of Mikal Bridges: Charles Krupa / Associated Press)