Knicks have been tested against the pistons. Do they have enough to compete with the Celtics?

Detroit – New York Knicks know that giving a thumb can mean the end of a game, the end of a series. This is a lesson that they first handed over to the young exuberant and annoying Detroit pistons Thursday evening. And this is a lesson that they will now conscientiously carry in their series of second round against a team of Boston Celtics that they could not solve.

Detroit will learn – Hopefully with better health, maturity and staff – but they discovered as painful as possible, the lesson delivered by Jalen Brunson.

Only two minutes and 35 seconds separated the series from the first round of a tasty date of Saturday evening at Madison Square Garden, a match 7 of the most surprising kind. All that Detroit had to do was to treat a seven -point lead. But Brunson, the clutch player for the year of the NBA, went down the pistons and lost Ausar Thompson for a 3 -point pointer winning with 4.3 seconds, the decisive shot in match 6 at Little Caesars Arena.

Thompson's defense was a key to dripping the Knicks offensive to start the fourth quarter. But he guessed badly for the first time all night, giving Brunson Broad Daylight on a triple at the top of the key on his way up to 40 points. On the possession that followed, Malik Beasley let a pass slide into his hands before trying a triple that accumulates with less than a second left – after reaching six in the night – sealing the end of the series 116-113 Victory For Knicks.

“It is its best when its best is necessary,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau about Brunson after the match. “The playoffs, as you know, concern your tenacity and your discipline. There will be a lot of ups and downs, and you have to go through it.

“We are talking about all the intangible assets, it is its makeup. This is where the errors are made in the project and things like that. And it is easy to see how many points a guy brand, or what are (his) physical tools, but when you look at the mental tools, that's all.”

The Knicks struck and struck hard, taking several two-digit tracks in match 6. The pistons have countered, showing a resolution that the Knicks did not seem to expect this stage of the series, since Detroit was riding a return from Down 3-1.

“Obviously, everyone will say a lot on the last blow, but throughout the match, the ups and downs that we are all composed,” said Brunson. “I give a lot of credit to my teammates.”

To show how emotional this eliminatory series was for the two teams, it was only the second time in the history of the League where four consecutive qualifying series have been decided by three points or less (Boston-Philadelphia, 1981 ECF being the other).

For the pistons, each successive loss of the terrain was even more heartbreaking, more exasperating than the previous one. In match 3, they were turned upside down by Brunson perhaps in the rear area during a match at a possession. Two days later, Tim Hardaway Jr. was the victim of a fault, the league agreed after the fact, by Josh Hart on a triple potential of series.

Then, the blow of grace in front of perhaps the best crowd of these series of the playoffs – a group desperate of Detroiters who no longer consider their team as the group of 14 victories which emerged from the mud. They wanted blood – in particular of Brunson, who was in derision each time he touched the Ballon to Detroit. The songs of “flopping” were the most kind and most PG-13 language they could find.

But Brunson manages to concentrate, Steel himself and the Knicks wrap their arms around this mentality in end of game moments.

“We are a difficult group. Everyone likes to paint us like no. We are a physical and hard group,” said Knicks striker Josh Hart. “It was a physical series. It was an exhausting series, and I think we showed our physique, our tenacity, but also our mental tenacity. The way we managed adversity. These unfavorable situations, we gathered.”

It may be the best possible test for knicks as Celtics are waiting for. A match 7 would have been disastrous for anyone who came out in the lead, but they have a few days to come together and wash the smell of pistons.

Mikal Bridges and Og Anunoby had their hands full of pistons, everyone's goalkeeper Cade Cunningham, who was going through his first experience in the playoffs. He led the pistons with 23 points, seven rebounds and eight assists in match 6, but was forced to late failures that he would like to have.

This inexperience will not be an advantage that Knicks can use against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the rest of the group tested in Boston.

The Celtics will be just as much a favorite on the Knicks as the Knicks should have been on Detroit, and we have all seen how this series turned into an enraged fight.

The regular season has shown that Knicks cannot beat the Celtics in Boston or New York – and even when the Knicks had the Hope Ribbon on their home floor, Tatum was there to tear it away with the last second triplets of Pas Pas.

The Celtics are not far from the team that ran in the playoffs last spring, barely tested. They were calleux years to get closer and lose, hardened by the change around the two headliners until the discovery of the right combination.

It is not exactly the same for the Knicks, who had to get out of the first round to suppress speculations surrounding the future of Thibodeau, but they cannot simply enter the night simply because they face the powerful Celtics.

They will have to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion of this series before meeting the Celtics in their hostile environment. Karl-Anthony Towns is particularly qualified to find out what is happening, facing a reigning champion in the playoffs last season when he was in Minnesota.

The series of wild semi -final of last year between Minnesota and Denver presented all the twists and turns – capped by cities and Timberwolves shocking the Nuggets in a match 7 in Denver, shaking a 20 -point deficit in the process.

“It was an emotionally draining series,” said Towns, who committed a fault after scoring 10 points and seized 15 rebounds on Thursday. “The way we celebrated (last year), you would have thought we reached the final. These are only the semi-finals. “

Three days later, they were back in Minneapolis with an advantage at home, but spent emotionally, abandoning the first two games of their final series of the West Conference against the Dallas Mavericks – unable to recover.

“With this experience, we have learned a lot,” said Towns. “You must be ready for match 9, you must be ready to have this energy and this emotional capacity.”

Detroit has released something from the Knicks, demanding his best in these moments. This will serve them in the long term. But as the Knicks advance, you wonder if they are so beaten and marked, they will not have enough to compete with the titles of titles who are apparently champions to be the champion once again.

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