DETROIT — The New York Knicks know that giving an inch can mean the end of a game, the end of a series. It’s a lesson they delivered firsthand to the young, exuberant and pesky Detroit Pistons on Thursday night. And it’s a lesson they’ll now carry dutifully into their second-round series against a Boston Celtics team they haven’t been able to solve.
Detroit will learn — hopefully with better health, maturity and personnel — but they found out in the most painful way possible, the lesson delivered by Jalen Brunson.
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Just two minutes and 35 seconds separated the first-round series from a tasty Saturday night date at Madison Square Garden, a Game 7 of the most surprising kind. All Detroit had to do was nurse a seven-point lead. But Brunson, the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year, walked down the Pistons and lost Ausar Thompson for a game-winning 3-pointer with 4.3 seconds left, the decisive shot in Game 6 at Little Caesars Arena.
Thompson’s defense was a key in gumming up the Knicks’ offense to start the fourth quarter. But he guessed wrong for the first time all night, giving Brunson broad daylight on a triple at the top of the key on his way to 40 points. On the ensuing possession, Malik Beasley let a pass slip through his hands before attempting a game-tying triple with less than a second left — after hitting six on the night — sealing the series-ending 116-113 win for the Knicks.
“He’s at his best when his best is needed,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said about Brunson after the game. “The playoffs, as you know, is about your toughness and discipline. There’s gonna be a lot of highs and lows, and you gotta get through that.
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“We talk about all the intangibles, it’s his makeup. That’s where mistakes are made in the draft and things like that. And it’s easy to see how many points a guy scores, or what (his) physical tools are, but when you look at the mental tools, that’s everything.”
The Knicks punched, and punched hard, taking multiple double-digit leads in Game 6. The Pistons countered, showing a resolve the Knicks honestly didn’t seem to expect at this point in the series, considering Detroit was mounting a comeback from down 3-1.
“Obviously everyone’s gonna say a lot about the last shot, but throughout the game, the ups and downs that we all stay composed,” Brunson said. “I give a lot of credit to my teammates.”
To show just how emotionally taxing this playoff series was for both teams, it’s only the second time in league history where four straight playoff games were decided by three points or fewer (Boston-Philadelphia, 1981 ECF being the other).
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For the Pistons, each successive home-court loss was even more heartbreaking, more infuriating than the last. In Game 3, they were upset about Brunson perhaps going backcourt during a one-possession game. Two days later, Tim Hardaway Jr. was fouled, the league agreed after the fact, by Josh Hart on a potential series-tying triple.
Then this, the coup de grace in front of perhaps the best crowd of these playoffs — a desperate band of Detroiters who no longer think of their team as the 14-win bunch that emerged from the muck. They wanted blood — especially from Brunson, who was derided every time he touched the ball in Detroit. Chants of “flopper” were the kindest, most PG-13 language they could come up with.
But Brunson manages to center himself, steel himself and the Knicks wrap their arms around that mentality in late-game moments.
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“We’re a tough group. Everyone likes to paint us as not. We’re a tough, physical group,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said. “This was a physical series. This was a grueling series, and I think we showed our physicality, our toughness, but also our mental toughness. The way we handled adversity. Those adverse situations, we banded together.”
Perhaps this was the best possible test for the Knicks as the Celtics await. A Game 7 would’ve been disastrous for whomever came out on top, but they have a few days to regroup and wash the scent of the Pistons off them.
Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby had their hands full with Pistons all-world guard Cade Cunningham, who was going through his first playoff experience. He led the Pistons with 23 points, seven rebounds and eight assists in Game 6, but was forced into some late misses he’d love to have back.
That inexperience won’t be an advantage the Knicks can use against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the rest of the tested bunch in Boston.
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The Celtics will be just as much a favorite over the Knicks as the Knicks should’ve been over Detroit, and we all saw how this series devolved into a rabid dogfight.
The regular season has shown the Knicks can’t beat the Celtics, in Boston or in New York — and even when the Knicks have had the sliver of hope on their home floor, Tatum has been there to snatch it away with last second step-back triples.
The Celtics aren’t far removed from being the squad that ran through the playoffs last spring, barely being tested. They were calloused from the years of getting close and losing, hardened by the change around the two headliners until the right combination was discovered.
It’s not exactly the same for the Knicks, who needed to get out of the first round to quell speculation surrounding Thibodeau’s future, but they can’t just go quietly into the night just because they’re facing the mighty Celtics.
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They’ll need to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion of this series before meeting the Celtics in their hostile environment. Karl-Anthony Towns is uniquely qualified to know what’s coming, going up against a defending champion in the playoffs last season when he was in Minnesota.
Last year’s wild semifinal series between Minnesota and Denver featured all the twists — capped off by Towns and the Timberwolves shocking the Nuggets in a Game 7 in Denver, shaking off a 20-point deficit in the process.
“It was an emotionally draining series,” said Towns, who fouled out after scoring 10 points and grabbing 15 rebounds on Thursday. “The way we celebrated (last year), you would’ve thought we made it to the Finals. It was only the semifinals.”
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Three days later, they were back in Minneapolis with home-court advantage, but emotionally spent, dropping the first two games of their Western Conference final series against the Dallas Mavericks — unable to recover.
“With that experience, we learned a lot,” Towns said. “You gotta be ready for Game 9, you gotta be ready to have that energy and emotional capacity.”
Detroit pulled something out of the Knicks, demanding their best in those moments. It’ll serve them in the long run. But as the Knicks move on, you wonder if they’re so battered and scarred they won’t have nearly enough to compete with the titleholders who are seemingly champing to be the champ one more time.
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