On Friday night in New York City, more than 19,000 Knicks fans poured out of Madison Square Garden and onto Seventh Avenue, celebrating their team’s improbable 4-2 series victory over the Boston Celtics. The NBA’s social media peanut gallery had previously taken issue with Knicks fans for their overly exuberant early-round victory celebrations, but after landing in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in a quarter-century, this party was as legit as the Knicks newfound title hopes.
New York had beaten their rivals by a franchise playoff-record margin of 38 points, ending Boston’s reign as NBA champs. If you watched the way they suffocated the Celtics, you know it wasn’t even that close. The way this series ended was as stunning as how it began, with consecutive historic Celtic meltdowns at TD Garden, when the home team surrendered 20-point second-half leads not once but twice. Then New York were moments from wrapping up another improbable victory in Game 4 when Boston cornerstone Jayson Tatum went down with an achilles injury. Back in Boston, down three games to one, with their season on the brink and their all-NBA player in the hospital recovering from season-ending surgery, Boston powered through Game 5 on pure adrenaline. That wave of raw energy had crashed by the start of Game 6, and the Celtics finally tapped out. The Garden crowd let out 25 years of shpilkes as they watched their team bounce the champs.
