The Boston Celtics held off the New York Knicks 91-89 tonight at TD Garden for three simple reasons: the C's play defense, they have a point guard and they use their bench (they outscored the Knicks 23-9).
It would be piling on to mention that Doc Rivers routinely coaches circles around Mike D'Antoni but I'll stick with the three main ingredients.
Boston (12-10) avenged its two-point loss on Christmas Day by winning for the seventh time in the last eight games.
Conversely, New York (8-15) continues to spiral downward. It seems inevitable that D'Antoni will be fired at some point this season, the Knicks can't go on playing this badly without a major change to shake up this poorly constructed team.
Paul Pierce was the best player on the parquet with a game-high 30 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Kevin Garnett had 15 points and eight rebounds while Ray Allen scored nine of his 14 points in the fourth quarter aka winning time. Rajon Rondo was rusty in his return after missing eight games, he had seven points, seven assists, five rebounds and five turnovers.
Carmelo Anthony (26 points, 6 assists), Tyson Chandler (20 points, 11 rebounds, 4 steals) and Amare Stoudemire (16 points, 11 rebounds) had nice numbers but it didn't help them get the most important thing-the win.
Only on a D'Antoni team would the last two shots in a one-possession game go to Landry Fields (11 points) and Steve Novak (0 points, that was his only playing time!), who both launched 3-pointers that didn't have a prayer of going in. It's baffling that somebody could be such a one-dimensional (offense!) coach and still be employed at the highest level.
New York led 72-62 in the third quarter but Boston slowly chipped away. The Celtics' defense won it for them since they held the Knicks to 34 second-half points. The teams play twice more in the regular season.
The C's will try to keep it going on Sunday as they host Memphis in a rare 12 p.m. tip-off since it's Super Bowl Sunday. Did you hear the Patriots are in the Super Bowl?
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