knicks-celtics-game-4-imagn.png
Imagn Images

NEW YORK -- On the strength of a 39-point performance by Jalen Brunson, another fantastic fourth quarter from Mikal Bridges and by far their best offensive showing of the series, the New York Knicks took a 3-1 series lead against the Boston Celtics with a 121-113 win in Game 4 on Monday at Madison Square Garden. The Celtics' Jayson Tatum scored a game-high 42 points on 16-for-28 shooting before suffering a non-contact injury with about three minutes left in the game.

The Knicks trailed by 14 points three minutes into the second half. From there, they went on a 32-13 run. New York rebounded 38% of its misses in the game.

"It was terrible defensively tonight, to be frank," Boston's Jaylen Brown said. "No resistance. Offense was great, offense was fine. No resistance on defense."

The Celtics shot 12 for 24 from 3-point range in the first half and 6 for 24 from 3-point range in the second half.

The Knicks have a chance to clinch the series and advance to the conference finals for the first time since 2000 on Wednesday in Boston. 

Here are our major takeaways from Game 4:

Brunson and Bridges take over

Entering Game 4, Brunson was averaging 24.3 points in the series, but he'd shot 38.1% from the field and had a 53.8% true shooting percentage. While he had made some enormous plays late in the Knicks' two wins at TD Garden, his overall inefficiency was a cause for concern.

Not so much now. As Brunson always seems to do, even when carrying a huge playmaking load and facing an elite defense, he got comfortable on Monday. In the third quarter alone, he erupted for 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting, plus three assists. After scoring another eight in the fourth, he's up to 102 fourth-quarter points in 10 games during these playoffs. He and Kobe Bryant are the only players to score 100-plus in the first 10 games of a playoff run.

Brunson scored in all sorts of ways: tough, contested midrange jumpers, sidestep 3s, floaters, layups in traffic. At one point in the third quarter, the 6-foot-2 guard snuck in to grab an offensive rebound off a missed corner 3 (that he'd created for OG Anunoby), then made a layup over the 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis. 

When "times get tough," Bridges said, Brunson "is going to stay locked in and just get us there."

Bridges had 13 points on 6-for-15 shooting at the end of the third quarter, then started the fourth by hitting back-to-back pull-up jumpers, the second of which was over 7-foot-1 center Luke Kornet. A few minutes later, he hit another middy, this one over Porzingis, to give New York a 96-93 lead. Bridges made his first five shots of the fourth, all of them off-the-dribble jumpers, the last one bailing the Knicks out at the end of the shot clock. It was not an easy shot by any means, but, at that point, it seemed obvious that it was going to drop.

"He played hard the whole game," New York coach Tom Thibodeau said. "I thought he had some good looks [early in the game]. They didn't go in. But that didn't sway him at all. And then he got going big-time in the fourth quarter. Those were huge shots he hit."

Brunson, Bridges' college teammate, attributed Bridges' shotmaking to a work ethic that he'd seen grow year by year since 2015. 

"Seeing everything he does, how psychotic he is with his work, it all pays off," Brunson said. "So I have full trust in him, no matter what the situation is."

Tatum injury has wide-reaching impact

When Tatum hit the floor late in the fourth quarter, Brunson thought that he'd just turned an ankle. When Tatum stayed down for several minutes after that, it became clear that it was something much worse. He was eventually helped off the floor, and he left the game in a wheelchair. Before taking questions at the podium, Brunson said that he wanted to send his prayers out to Tatum.

"You just never want to see something like that, ever," Brunson said.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla described it as a lower-body injury and said that Tatum would get an MRI on Tuesday. 

"He's the type of guy that, when [he falls], he gets right up," Mazzulla said. "So he didn't, and we'll know tomorrow exactly what it is, but yeah, it's tough to watch a guy like him get carried off like that."

Jayson Tatum suffers torn Achilles: Injury could force Celtics star to miss all of next season in brutal blow
Jack Maloney
Jayson Tatum suffers torn Achilles: Injury could force Celtics star to miss all of next season in brutal blow

If the injury is as serious as it seems, this could effectively end the defending champions' hopes of repeating and take their best player out of the picture next season, too.

"It's tough," Brown said. "There's not really a lot to say."

Brown said that everybody on the team was at a loss for words because of the loss and Tatum's injury. Asked how he was digesting what the injury could mean for the franchise, he said: "I'm not sure. I've got no words right now."

Before the injury, Tatum was putting together his best game of these playoffs. En route to his 42 points, he made seven 3s, some of them deep and difficult, and had eight rebounds, four assists, two blocks and four steals in 40 minutes. He attempted only three free throws and took a few questionable jumpers, but, for the vast majority of the game, was the best player on the floor.

Boston won Game 2 of its first-round series against the Orlando Magic without Tatum, but this is an entirely different situation. With its season on the line in Game 5, it will need to make for the absence of the player who can create advantages most easily and the player who has been been the primary defender against Karl-Anthony Towns all series.

"As a group, we just have to rally," Celtics big man Al Horford said. "Rally together. Because obviously we've lost our leader and the guy that gets us going. We have to come together as a group."

Jaylen Brown must be better

Mazzulla, Brown and Horford all said that Boston didn't play up to its standard defensively. This is true, particularly in the second half. But both sides of the floor are connected, and Mazzulla pointed out that the Knicks were able to play with pace in part because of the Celtics' poor offensive execution.

In this sense, Brown needs to be better on Wednesday. If he tries to force the issue because Tatum isn't there, he risks turning the ball over or missing layups in traffic. Brown committed four turnovers on Monday, but he also missed three shots when attacking the basket, all of which effectively functioned as live-ball turnovers because New York was able to run the other way with an advantage. A few of his off-the-dribble 3s were ill-advised, too.

Brown finished with 20 points on 7-for-16 shooting, plus seven rebounds and two assists. Foul trouble limited him to 33 minutes, though, and his decision-making on offense was far from ideal. If the Celtics are going to keep their season alive in Game 5, they need Brown at his best.