BOSTON — One by one, Celtics shots clanged around the rim.
With each miss, the Knicks clawed a little bit closer.
The Celtics missed a staggering 14 straight field goal attempts in the fourth quarter of the Knicks’ 91-90 Game 2 win Wednesday night at TD Garden.
Boston only scored 17 points in the quarter.
They looked far from defending champions amid an epic meltdown.
“I thought in the fourth quarter, our defense was outstanding,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “That’s what we need to do for the entire game. … People always talk about offensive runs. I think you go on defensive runs as well.”
OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges — dubbed “Wingstop” due to them being the Knicks defensive stoppers against opposing wings — were behind much of that defensive improvement late.
Jaylen Brown, after scoring 20 points through three quarters, went scoreless in the fourth quarter and missed all four shots he took.
Jayson Tatum finished with just 13 points on brutal 5-for-19 shooting from the field.
And Anunoby and Bridges combined to seal the game — Anunoby helped on Tatum after he had gotten by Mitchell Robinson before Bridges stole his pass in the closing seconds.
“They made every play,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of the Knicks. “Throughout the end of that fourth quarter, I thought we generated some good looks. Then, I thought we had some live-ball turnovers and they took advantage of it. They made the necessary plays to win.”
It’s rare to see a championship-caliber team like the Celtics unravel in such dramatic fashion.
For it to happen in two straight games is hard to believe.
Can the Knicks feel when the Celtics begin to fall apart?
“To be realistic, that doesn’t come to mind,” Josh Hart said. “Our biggest thing is, especially when you’re going on a run, is ‘all right, let’s get a stop.’ We get a stop, ‘let’s get another stop.’ We got guys that can score the ball. We’re down that much, we’re thinking about ‘let’s get this down to a one-possession game towards the end of the game.’ I feel like our defensive intensity picked up in the fourth quarter. Now we have to learn from it and Saturday, put together a full game.”
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