Jalen Brunson and the Knicks had plenty of support in Game 5 at TD Garden.
Jalen Brunson and the Knicks had plenty of support in Game 5 at TD Garden.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
It was a strange night at TD Garden. A large number of New York Knicks fans found their way into the Causeway Street gym and made life uncomfortable for a Celtics fan base still reeling from the season-ending injury (ruptured Achilles’) sustained by Boston superstar Jayson Tatum in Game 4 of this conference semifinal.
Wearing a Tatum jersey, new Celtic owner (we think) Bill Chisholm watched from the front row. We wondered if he had buyer’s remorse.
The Celtics dominated the first four games of this series. And lost three of them.
Ugh. Boston played with a lead in 162 minutes of the first four games. New York had the lead for only 25 minutes. And yet . . . the Knicks were ahead of the Celtics when the final buzzer sounded at the end of Games 1, 2, and 4.
The psychological carnage of Game 4 in New York was still being felt Wednesday and is likely to last for a decade or more. The notion of losing to a New York team was bad enough, but the sight of Franchise Tatum writhing on the floor of Madison Square Garden is branded into the brain of the New England sports mind. We might be in for a rough patch with our local teams (did someone say, “Loserville?”) now that the Celtics will be without Tatum for most, or all, of next season.
Winning Game 5, meanwhile, was still possible when fans gathered at the Causeway Street barn. It was 59-59 at halftime. The Celtics and their fans were hoping that the second half would not be the final half of the Boston basketball season.
There was tremendous traffic around the Garden in the hours leading up to tipoff. Many of those who made it in (Timothee Chalamet — you might know him as “Dylan” — was on the guest list) felt free to chant, “Knicks in five!’’
Are the Knicks The Pope’s Team? One has to wonder. American-born Pope Leon XIV graduated from Villanova and the Knicks have three Wildcats (Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges) in their starting lineup.
There was some question about who would take Tatum’s place in Boston’s starting lineup. I half expected Joe Mazzulla to send out a riderless horse to remind us of Boston’s missing superstar, but Joey Mazz went with Kristaps Portzingis, Al Horford, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Jrue Holiday. Porzingis (1 point in 12 minutes in the first half) looked particularly ineffective.
With White making his first four 3-point attempts, Boston went out to an 18-13 lead. There was a little drama late in the first when Luke Kornet inadvertently elbowed Hart in the head. Both players bled after the blow (Hart bled a lot and was gone for awhile), but it was ruled an ordinary foul. Torrey Craig and Sam Hauser were on the floor for the Celtics before the end of the first.
New York led, 32-30, after one. Boston made 7 of 15 threes in the quarter. Brown scored a pedestrian 5 points.
With Brown (who played the entire first quarter) on the bench, the Knicks bolted to a 40-32 lead early in the second. A three by Miles McBride forced Mazzulla (McBride and the Celtic coach both played for Bob Huggins at West Virginia) to call a rare timeout in the third minute of the second quarter. Brown came back into the game.
The Celtics rallied immediately. A fall-down three by Brown and a long 2-point shot by JB capped a nice Celtic run and put the Green back in front midway through the second.
Back from his bloodied brow, Hart drained a pair of threes as the lead changed hands a few times.
They settled for 59-59 at intermission. Brown played 21 minutes in the first two quarters and had 17 at halftime. The Celtics took 25 threes in the first two quarters, making 12.
We were on to the second half. Hopefully not the last half.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.