BOSTON — With 2:27 left in the third quarter and the Celtics holding onto a 13-point lead, Knicks forward OG Anunoby drove to the net hoping to swing the pendulum back toward the road team at TD Garden.
But Luke Kornet was waiting. Boston’s reserve big man blocked the shot, then chased the ball to the corner. He lunged to save it from going out of bounds before hustling up the floor.
The Celtics fans at TD Garden had been tentative for much of the game to that point. After watching their team blow 20-point leads in both Games 1 and 2, they were hesitant to let themselves trust a double-digit lead.
But when Sam Hauser found Kornet for a reverse-alley oop to finish the block-save-dunk sequence, the building roared as loud as it has all series.
The Celtics’ 127-102 win will be remembered as “The Luke Kornet Game.”
Or perhaps as “The Derrick White Game” for his 34-point-effort.
Or maybe even the “They-Won-It-For-Jayson-Tatum-Game.”
What it won’t be is the last game. For at least two more nights, this Celtics squad is still together and the championship belt still belongs to Boston.
“Our back was against the wall,” White said. “It’s win or go home right now. None of us wanted to go home.”
Faced with the brutal adversity of losing Tatum to an Achilles injury Monday that ended his season and put next year in doubt, the Celtics delivered an uplifting effort at TD Garden and now trail the Knicks three games to two in their best-of-seven series.
The script in games like this usually goes one of two ways. They’d either go through the motions and limp to the finish line or come out defiant and come together to prove something.
Knowing Tatum was probably watching on a hospital TV, the Celtics came together and hammered the Knicks at home.
“The air kind of left the room when we heard about J.T.,” Jaylen Brown said. “We didn’t want to go out like that. We didn’t want to give up or turn the season in like everyone else would expect. … We were able to find a way to win tonight.”
Other than Kristaps Porzingis, who is still struggling with respiratory issues, every Celtics player raised their game.
White’s 34 points came on seven 3-pointers. He had 13 in the first quarter to set the tone and 14 in the third as Boston pulled away.
Kornet had 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks. According to the Athletic’s Law Murray, he became just the fifth player in history to record five rebounds and five blocks in a playoff quarter.
Tasked with being the unquestioned alpha in Tatum’s absence, Brown rose to the moment with 26 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds.
“He took it on himself to get us going and we just followed his lead,” White said. “He played a great game for 48 minutes and really carried us.”
It was a great night, one they should be proud of. But the reality of history is that a lot of teams do exactly what the Celtics did. The challenge is summoning that same energy and inspiration a second time.
The history that the Knicks are attempting to reverse is more personal. They’re going to spend the next two days being reminded about generations of New York basketball teams that have shriveled when the lights are the brightest. They’ve been a disappointing playoff team for half a century and they’ve squandered chances to clinch as recently as last year when they led the Pacers three games to two before collapsing badly in Game 6 and 7.
The Knicks came into this series as the underdog with nothing to lose against a defending champ who had swept them in the regular season. But with Tatum out and a series lead, the pressure is on New York not to fold again.
It should make for an awfully compelling Game 6 on Friday at Madison Square Garden.
“I know it’s easy to write things off. It’s obviously unfortunate what happened to J.T. but there’s still basketball to be played,” Brown said. “I believe in this group. Don’t count us out just yet.”
