Three Studs, Three Duds As Celtics Suffer Nightmare Game 4 Loss To Knicks

The Boston Celtics left Madison Square Garden with an extremely costly failed mission after Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinals clash against the New York Knicks on Monday night.

Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the rest of the crew approached the battle with the same do-or-die execution that prevented New York from capturing a 3-0 lead in Game 3. The Knicks ran into the best of the Celtics in the first half, as everyone pitched in with a relentless, everlasting battery charge on both sides of the floor to amplify the pressure on Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns on their home floor.

But it didn’t last long enough. Once the third quarter came along, the tides turned and Boston’s luck forsook the team in the most unforeseen way possible. Tatum suffered a non-contact injury that left the 27-year-old in a wheelchair in the player’s tunnel. The Celtics returned to their inefficient ways, all the while the Knicks awaited to counter and trot across the finish line with a commanding 3-1 series lead.

Here are three studs and three duds from Boston’s 121-113 Game 4 loss to New York:

STUDS
Jayson Tatum
It was a classic all-time playoff performance in the making for Tatum, until the fourth quarter rolled around.

Tatum scored 42 points on 16-of-28 shooting from the floor while also knocking down seven 3-pointers. He was taking over Madison Square Garden, leaving Knicks fans in disbelief, but once the Celtics desperately fought to fend off New York in the fourth quarter, the worst came to life. Tatum suffered a lower-body injury and failed to walk off the court on his power before being assisted to a wheelchair for the final three minutes of regulation.

Jalen Brunson
With Spike Lee, Ben Stiller and a celebrity-filled crowd in New York watching, Brunson rose to the occasion and stood tall.

Brunson dropped a double-double by scoring 39 points with 12 assists. When challenged, Brunson did right by the Knicks in exploiting Boston’s defensive flaws — mostly by hunting 38-year-old Al Horford in isolation — and cashing in. It was a legacy-building performance for the two-time All-Star who now has a chance to take the Knicks somewhere they haven’t been in 25 years: the conference finals.

Karl-Anthony Towns
Towns played Robin to Brunson’s Batman.

The five-time All-Star, too, notched a double-double of his own with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Towns dominated the floor, shooting 11-of-15 from the field to remind the Celtics of what they don’t have — an inside presence capable of committing to owning the paint. Boston could’ve thrown the kitchen sink at Towns and nothing would’ve worked.

DUDS
Boston’s third-quarter execution
Everything the Celtics did wrong in the first two games of the series came back to life and backfired on them in the third quarter.

Boston’s defensive awareness and 3-point frenzy took a step back. Jaylen Brown got into foul trouble and logged his fourth infraction, all while the team fired away 12 threes — and only made three. Rather than re-establishing some offensive dominance by getting to the basket and baiting Knicks defenders, the Celtics settled for the same shot attempts that lost them Game 2 in Boston. New York, meanwhile, smelled blood and attacked. The Knicks scored 37 points behind Brunson’s 18-point outburst.

Kristaps Porzingis
The ongoing mystery illness battle has reduced Porzingis to a 7-foot decoy at this point.

Porzingis was a two-way liability, scoring just seven points off the bench while getting blown by on the other end of the floor. The Knicks had their way with Porzingis and it was arguably the worst the Celtics have seen from him since joining the team two years ago. Even when Boston stuck with Porzingis during the deciding minutes of the late-third and early fourth quarter, the price of keeping the 29-year-old in the game was much too costly for the Celtics to recover from.

Joe Mazzulla
With a chance at redemption to restore and make up for everything that Mazzulla failed to do right in Games 1 and 2, the 36-year-old doubled down.

It’s one thing to get out-coached by New York’s Tom Thibodeau, but it’s another thing to write down your game plan, walk over the Knicks’ bench and write your own self-destruction plan — and that’s what Mazzulla did.

The Celtics got lousy, cocky and unaware of their own vulnerability all because the one-dimensional way of thinking that is Mazzulla’s game plan. Instead of attacking the interior, Boston sprinted toward the 3-point line. Instead of removing Porzingis and replacing him with a pair of fresh legs from the bench, Mazzulla played the ill 7-footer for much too long. It was an utter disaster of a coaching job from Mazzulla that, instead of being chalked up as a learning lesson, should be relayed as a reality check to ownership.