The Boston Celtics are a different animal, and New York Knicks star point guard Jalen Brunson knows it. Even though Brunson was able to put on a show at TD Garden Thursday night to lead the Knicks to a 118-109 victory over the Celtics, he’s going to be the first one to tell people that Boston is a tough customer to take down no matter how easy he made it look in the win.
After the game, Brunson was asked what helped the Knicks finally score a win this season against the Celtics, who had previously defeated New York four times in a row in the 2023-24 NBA campaign.
“You’ve got to play hard for 48 minutes, you’ve got to play smart for 48 minutes. You don’t have to play perfect, it’s not a perfect game, but you’ve just got to be able to play hard and capitalize on the slim mistakes they make and just play the best style of basketball that we create. It’s a lot of things that go into it, but like I said, the ball went in a lot tonight and we got a lot of stops.”
Jalen Brunson mostly attributed the #Knicks win to hitting shots. On key to beating #Celtics, he said it’s not about playing perfect, but capitalizing on the slim number of mistakes Boston makes pic.twitter.com/IVe7XChzCr
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) April 12, 2024
Brunson did not say it, but he was a major reason the Knicks escaped Beantown with a win, as he dropped 39 points on 15/23 shooting from the field, including six 3-pointers with four dimes in 30 minutes of floor duty.
Boston is a complete team with not a lot of weaknesses to exploit, and it’s probably going to take the Knicks to be near-perfect again to eliminate the Celtics should the two teams cross paths in the upcoming NBA Playoffs, but so long as Brunson is healthy and playing the way he’s been of late, New York will always have a shot.
Over his last six games, Brunson has averaged 36.2 points and 8.7 assists.
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