Knicks Streak Lands Them in Championship Company

New York Knicks fans have been sweating and fretting throughout this ongoing playoff run, but the theatrics have landed them in intriguing company.

The Knicks opened their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the defending champion Boston Celtics on a high note, besting Beantown by a 108-105 final in overtime on Monday night at TD Garden.

That granted the Knicks an improbable 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven set, one secured when OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges earned vastly different three-point plays in the extra session.

The Knicks' postseason activities have generated plenty of opinions, but one thing they can't be called is boring: Monday's game was the fifth consecutive Knick game to be decided by three points or less.

The only other team in to amass such drama in a single NBA postseason is, ironically enough, the 1980-81 Boston Celticswho pulled off such a feat in the final stages of a championship run.

Save for the opener of their prior quarterfinal set with the Detroit Pistons, every 2025 playoff game on the Knicks' docket to date has come down to the wire.

After Monday, New York has a 4-2 record in those contests, a mark no doubt assisted by the antics of newly-crowned NBA Clutch Player of the Year Jalen Brunson.

Game 1 of the Celtics series was no doubt the most thrilling stanza to date and one that perhaps established a new peak for modern metropolitan hardwood euphoria: with few, if any, placing their faith in Manhattan after it endured a one-sided green sweep in the regular season, the Knicks came up from a deficit that reached as high as 20 to pull off the victory.

Brunson lived up to his new title with 11 points in the final period of regulation before yielding to Anunoby and Bridges, the later of whom stifled Boston's final opportunity to forced a sixth period when he swiped an inbounds pass from Jaylen Brown before the latter could get up a would-be equalizer.

"[We] keep putting ourselves in these type of games, but I think we've done a great job of just fighting and giving ourselves a chance to win," Towns said of the Knicks' narrow victory margins in video from SNY.

"Just putting ourselves in a position where we can find a way to leave here tonight with a win is all it's about.

So shoutout to this team, the grittiness of this team, the resilience of this team to not let go of the rope in the third quarter." In creating a historic streak, the Knicks also ended one of their more dubious postseason marks: Monday marked the Knicks' first playoff overtime win since Game 3 of the 1996 conference semifinals against the Chicago Bulls.

New York had lost four other playoff overtime games in the interim, including a 112-106 decision to Philadelphia in Game 5 of last year's quarterfinals.

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Pistons.

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