Jalen Brunson and Og Anunoby scored 23 points each and the New York Knicks reached the ESE conference final for the first time from 2000 by crushing Boston Celtics visitors by 119-81 on Friday in game 6 of their semifinal series.
Mikal Bridges scored 22 points and Karl-Anthony Towns added 21 points and 12 rebounds for New York, third classified, which came to have an advantage of up to 41 points. The Knicks closed the series to the best of seven with the biggest difference of victories in playoffs in the history of the franchise.
New York passed by 36 points to the Milwaukee Bucks in the decisive game 5 of the Eastern Division of 1970.
Josh Hart contributed 10 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists to register the first New York postseason triple since Walt Frazier achieved the feat in 1972.
The Knicks will open the conference final at home against the Indiana Pacers, fourths of standard heads, Wednesday.
The NBA defender champion, Boston, was led by Jaylen Brown, who scored 20 points, captured six rebounds and gave six assists before being expelled for faults at the end of the third quarter. The Celtics were again with a lower team after losing their star Jayson Tatum for a right Achilles tendon break during the fourth game on Monday.
New York hit 46.2% of its field shots, including 16 of 46 (34.8%) from the three -point line. The Knicks maintained an advantage of 55-36 in rebounds.
Payton Pritchard scored 11 points and to Horford added 10 for Boston, which fired 36 percent and succeeded 12 of 41 (29.3 percent) from the 3 -point line.
The score was tied 16-16 before the Knicks began to move away.
New York led 26-20 at the end of the first quarter and then opened the second with a streak of 16-4 to open an 18-point advantage in the middle of the period.
After Luke Kornet from Boston interrupted the outbreak with a three-point play, the Knicks scored 16 of the next 21 points to take an advantage of 58-32 with a dump of thousands of “Deuce” McBride with 1:31 for playing.
McBride scored a triple at the end of the first half to go to rest with an advantage of 64-37. This was New York’s greatest advantage to rest since the Los Angeles Lakers led by 69-42 in the seventh game of the 1970 finals, won by the Knicks.
The game ended effectively when Brown went out for fouls with 2:50 remaining in the third quarter and Boston below 33. Anunoby attacked with consecutive triples to finish a 10-0 streak while the margin exceeded 40 in 92-51 with 1:51 remaining in the third.
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