A season that featured an NHL-best 55 wins and 114 points — and a postseason that started with seven straight wins — is now 60 minutes from ending after the Rangers dropped Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final, 3-2, to the Panthers on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
Despite finally getting their first point of the series from Chris Kreider on the game’s first goal, another strong effort from Igor Shesterkin (34 saves) and Alexis Lafreniere’s fourth goal of the series, the Rangers lost their seventh straight Game 5 in the Eastern Conference Final, which now includes five at the Garden (1994, 2012, 2015, 2022) to fall behind in the series.
The Rangers have lost each such series since Mark Messier’s Game 6 guarantee in New Jersey and Stephane Matteau’s Game 7 clincher in 1994.
Kreider’s shorthanded goal — the team’s sixth of the postseason, marking the most by any team in 16 years (Red Wings) — gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead barely two minutes into the second period, but the Panthers quickly responded with Gustav Forsling’s backhand goal set up by a brilliant no-look pass from Sam Bennett.
The Panthers took the lead for good on an Anton Lundell goal with 9:38 to play.
The teams will face off for Game 6 on Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ABC) in Florida, where the Rangers and Panthers split overtime wins earlier this week.
The oft-cited parallels to the Rangers’ most recent Cup-winning run of 1994 now offers another similarity: The Presidents’ Trophy winners leave home for what could be their last game of the season.
Anyone got a guarantee?
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It’s easy being green
It is unclear why the Celtics are back in the NBA Finals — because they were the league’s top team in the regular season or because they encountered an historically favorable path through the Eastern Conference?
Their good fortune began when the bracket was finalized — three wins separated the No. 2 seed and No. 7 seed — and Boston headlined the weak side, knowing it would not face more than one of its greatest threats (Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia).
Ultimately, the Celtics encountered none of them, benefitting from injuries to the conference’s best player (Giannis Antetokounmpo) and half of the Knicks’ roster.
Instead, they faced the Heat — who defeated the Celtics in two of the previous four Eastern Conference Finals and took them to seven games in 2022 — who never had their best player (Jimmy Butler). A potentially tense series against Cleveland was wrapped up in five games after the Cavs’ best player (Donovan Mitchell) missed the final two games. And the Eastern Conference Finals — featuring a pair of three-point wins and an overtime victory — ended in a sweep after the Pacers lost their best player (Tyrese Haliburton) for the final two games.
The Celtics may have ended up here — four wins from their first championship since 2008 — even if every team was at full strength. They led the league with 64 wins, earning home-court advantage on a floor where they went 37-4 during the regular season.
But dominance during the regular season doesn’t mean as much as it used to.
Since 2006, only five of 12 teams that have won at least 64 games in a season went on to win the NBA title. Before then, 10 of 13 teams to win at least 64 games finished with a championship.
Now, the Celtics’ run will climax with an NBA Finals matchup against the fifth-seeded Mavericks — marking the first title matchup in seven years between teams separated by double-digit regular-season wins — who just decimated the league’s top defense and clinched their first Western Conference crown since 2011 with a 124-103 win Thursday night in Game 5 in Minnesota behind 36 points apiece from Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
It has the feel of a run that will earn little respect, that could be decorated with an asterisk. But that will fade. That’s how most titles are won these days.
Last year, the Nuggets won the final two rounds against a 7-seed and an 8-seed. In 2021, the Bucks won Game 7 in Brooklyn because Irving was hurt and James Harden was playing on one leg. In 2020, the Lakers won a title in the bubble, following a Jamal Murray injury and a matchup with the fifth-seeded Heat in the Finals. In 2019, the Raptors ended the Warriors’ three-peat bid following Finals injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. In 2018, the 65-win Rockets led 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals, then lost the series after losing Chris Paul to a hamstring injury. In 2016, the Cavs’ unprecedented comeback came after Draymond Green’s controversial Game 5 suspension. In 2015, the Warriors won their first title with Steph Curry against the shorthanded Cavs, playing without Irving and Kevin Love.
The Celtics will be favored in the Finals. Their net rating (11.6) is tied with the 2016-17 Warriors for the third-best in league history, trailing only Michael Jordan’s Bulls in 1995-96 and ’96-97. Brad Stevens hit back-to-back home runs with the acquisitions of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, upgrading the perennial contender into the league’s most balanced and consistent team.
But their greatest strength may be their health.
Every spring, their top two players (Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown) are available, allowing the Celtics to reach the Eastern Conference Finals in four of the past five seasons. Meanwhile, so many of the players lost or limited during the postseason (Joel Embiid, Kawhi Leonard, Zion Williamson, OG Anunoby) were easy to envision.
It feels as if the Celtics are due, following so many close calls.
It feels as if a title will never be easier for them to take, now, with nine days of rest before Game 1 of the NBA Finals begins in Boston and Porzingis expected to return from a calf injury.
But the truth is the Celtics probably will have several more swings, with the good fortune of being led by a pair of reliable stars in their mid-20s, playing in the league’s weaker conference.
Outside of the Knicks — who held upset potential before the injuries and still could improve in the offseason — who is a threat to Boston in the East?
The Bucks’ supporting cast is aging out of contention. Embiid breaks down every spring. The Magic are inexperienced. The Cavs are disjointed. The Heat already peaked. The Pacers’ defense isn’t ready for prime time.
The Mavericks are different, featuring shooters, size and athleticism, holding the edge in coaching, late-game shot-making and the best player on the court.
The Celtics’ run through the East was a joke. The Finals will be anything but.
Now for a Mets changeup
Jorge Lopez has regrets.
Though the former Mets reliever — who was designated for assignment Thursday after getting ejected from Wednesday’s loss and throwing his glove into the stands at Citi Field — in the immediate aftermath said he did not regret his actions, Lopez now wishes he had a mulligan on his controversial post-game interview, in which it was unclear whether the Puerto Rico native declared himself “the worst teammate in the entire league” or a member of the “worst team probably in the whole f–king MLB.”
“First and foremost, I apologize to my teammates, coaches, fans and front office,” Lopez said in a statement. “I feel that I let them down yesterday, both on and off the field. I also want to clarify my post-game remarks, because I had no intention of disparaging the New York Mets Organization. During that interview, I spoke candidly about my frustrations with my personal performance and how I felt it made me the worst teammate in the entire league.
“Unfortunately my efforts to address the media in English created some confusion and generated headlines that do not reflect what I was trying to express.”
The Mets, who ended a three-game skid with a come-from-behind 3-2 win over the Diamondbacks on Thursday night, did not have Pete Alonso in the starting lineup, but fears of a lengthy absence were quelled after CT scans revealed Alonso did not break any bones in his right hand when hit with a fastball on Wednesday and he then came through with a clutch pinch-hit double.
Francisco Lindor, who called Wednesday’s players-only meeting, went 4-for-4
June madness
There is no greater absence from the New York sports scene than an FBS team.
There may be no sadder drought locally — where college basketball was once king — than the two decades that have passed since a men’s team from any New York borough or suburb won a game during March Madness.
But on Friday, the NCAA Baseball Tournament begins, with a pair of New York schools eyeing the area’s latest unexpected run.
No. 3 St. John’s (37-16-1) opens the tournament against No. 2 Mississippi State (38-21) on Friday night (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+) in the Charlottesville Regional — also consisting of No. 1 Virginia and No. 4 Penn — while No. 4 Long Island University (33-23) will face No. 1 North Carolina (42-13) in Chapel Hill (6 p.m. ET, ESPN+) after No. 2 LSU and No. 3 Wofford play the early game of the double-elimination region.
The Red Storm will be making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018 — and 11th appearance since 2004 — while the Sharks earned their second bid in three years with a Northeast Conference championship.
It has been 12 years since Stony Brook made its improbable run to the College World Series, the only New York team since 1980 (St. John’s) to reach Omaha.
But other local schools have also made noise in the tournament in recent years. Columbia and St. John’s reached the Regional Final in 2015, and the Lions returned to that stage in 2022.
You can’t bank on it happening again this year. You can’t rule it out, either.
Prospect of the day
Ronald Hernandez is putting an exclamation point on a fantastic May.
The Mets catching prospect homered as part of a 2-for-5 game for Single-A St. Lucie on Thursday.
Hernandez, acquired in the David Robertson trade last summer, got off to an inauspicious start in 2024 with a .194 average in April.
But this month, the 20-year-old from Venezuela has put up a .370/.433/.494 slash line with five extra-base hits.
— Andrew Battifarano
What we’re reading 👀
⚾ After losing emerging rotation piece Clarke Schmidt to a lengthy IL trip, the Yankees (39-19) went out and used an Aaron Judge moonshot to roll past the Angels.
⚾ The Post’s Mike Vaccaro writes that it’s on Mets owner Steve Cohen to finally reverse the franchise’s reputation for embarrassing slapstick, which was reinforced on Wednesday.
⚾ What could the Mets bring back if they held a fire sale, starting with Pete Alonso? The Post’s Jon Heyman breaks it down.
🏈 Drew Lock regaled reporters with tales from his past and offered a mix of deference and confidence as he settles into the Giants backup QB job: “Whenever that time comes, if it comes, I’ll be ready.”
🏀 The Post’s Phil Mushnick recalls the Bill Walton he knew: an “old-school social conservative.”
⛳ Nelly Korda’s US Women’s Open came unglued in spectacular fashion.
🏀 Caitlin Clark now leads the WNBA … in technical fouls.
⚽ The biggest club soccer match of the year goes down Saturday when Real Madrid meet Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final.
🏀 Drew Gordon, a former NBA forward and the older brother of Nuggets star Aaron Gordon, died in a car crash at the age of 33.
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