Knicks vs. Celtics Game 5 takeaways
Knicks guard Josh Hart reacts after fouling Boston Celtics guard Derrick White during the second half of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Wednesday in Boston. Credit: AP/Charles Krupa
The Knicks insisted that they didn’t have one eye peering ahead to the possibility of their first Eastern Conference finals appearance in 25 years, but it certainly looked like if there was an urgent team in Wednesday's 127-102 loss, it was the defending champion Celtics.
1. What we have is a failure to communicate
How does this happen after 82 regular-season games, 11 playoff games and countless lectures and insistences that the issue would be resolved? The how is uncertain, but the evidence is easy to see that the Knicks still have an issue with their defensive communication — failing to identify and match up with Boston’s shooters in transition.
That’s how the Knicks seem to look at each other for explanations on the floor after yet another Derrick White three, which felt like they were still falling after the game as he poured in a game-high 34 points. White was 7-for-13 from three and the Boston starters were 14-for-26.
“I don’t know,” Josh Hart said. “I wish I could tell you, I wish I could pinpoint it because if we did we could address it. So I think that third quarter we just — there was a lot of frustration and that seeped into everything that we were doing. We’ve got to make sure that we control what we can control. That’s our communication and that’s our effort, that’s our intensity. Let everything else fall by the wayside. I feel like that’s not what we did today. We’ve got to learn from it and execute and be better Friday.”
“I think it’s two-fold,” Tom Thibodeau said. “The commitment to sprint back and then communicate to make sure that we understand what’s going on. You can’t have any personal dilemmas of, if you’re missing a shot or if it’s not going well for you offensively, that you’re jogging back. You’ve got to sprint back. You’ve got to communicate. And we’ve got to be matched up. If one guy is slow, you’re gonnna give them an open shot. You can’t do that against this team.”
2. The KAT is lost
The Knicks strength this season was supposed to come from the addition of Karl-Anthony Towns, providing a reliable offensive weapon to complement Jalen Brunson. But even though Towns finished with 19 points it was a quietly ineffective effort, unable to break out and take control as Boston’s backup Luke Kornet was the more imposing force at center.
Towns has just two three-point field goals in the series so far as Boston has used smaller defenders on him on the perimeter and the Knicks plan seems to be for him to try to find a way to do damage inside the arc — but Kornet was waiting for him there almost every time Wednesday.
“I haven’t really been out there really,” Towns said of the three-point drought. “Haven’t had the chance to shoot. We’ve just been trying to do our game plan and I’m just trying to execute at the highest level. So I’m trying to do most of my damage inside and do whatever my team asks of me.”
3. A foul mood for foul trouble
Any chance of Brunson bailing the Knicks out with late-game heroics was spoiled when he fouled out with 7:19 to play — after being whistled for five fouls in the third quarter alone.
“Five fouls in one quarter?” Brunson said afterward. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”
When it was followed up by noting how crazy it was, he added, “I’m not even gonna say anything. I’m sorry.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
