It's a closeout Game 4 as the Knicks try to win a playoff game at home for the first time in 10 years. So we're looking squarely at New York to see what the enemy is saying about the Celtics and today's game.
NY Daily News: But it will be a shock, and quite "a sad feeling" for all Knick fans if: A) The Knicks don't give a better overall effort than they did in Game 3. For the sky-high prices the Garden is asking its fans to pay for tickets, especially starting next season, it's the least the Knicks can do. B) Anthony doesn't at least try to take over the game from the opening tip. What's he got to lose?
NY Daily News: We talk constantly about the four huge basketball stars on the Celtics: Pierce, Allen, Garnett, Rondo, in no particular order, all have had their moments in this series. But really there are five stars performing at the highest possible level in this series, because Doc Rivers goes on the list, too, high up and in lights. It is why, if Rivers takes a year off after this season so he can go watch his son Austin play for Duke, he will be such a hot free-agent coach if and when he decides to come back, a hot property around here, and probably in Miami, too. Doc is that good at what he does. Rivers has won one title in Boston, would have won another last season if Kendrick Perkins hadn't gotten hurt. And even without Perkins to keep the Lakers off the boards in Game 7, Rivers and the Celtics were four possessions or so from winning it all. He is a great coach, one who has seemed to be about three moves ahead of the Knicks during this whole series.
Posting And Toasting: How Ray Allen kept getting wide open, 7SoM style.
Alan Hahn Twitter: Melo: "If we got to foul somebody, if we got to knock somebody out, we got to do whatever we got to do to avoid a sweep."
NY Post: With the Knicks at death's door, trailing the Celtics 3-0 and on the verge of being swept, Stoudemire said yesterday he may sit out today. He believes playing in the potential elimination game may not be worth the risk. Stoudemire realized he was a shell of himself in Friday's Game 3, scoring just seven points on 2-of-8 shooting while the team was minus-34 points when he was on the court. The Knicks were blown out 113-96, and Stoudemire said he was "below 50 percent."
NY Post: But here's the thing: Today is still an important statement for the Knicks, no matter how many issues they have strapped to their shoulders, no matter how inviting the first tee time of spring may seem. Because the story of these 2010-11 Knicks still hasn't been finished. There is still a denouement. Still an ending. Still a final judgment. And a meek four-game laydown will obscure — if not completely spoil — so much of what came before. And will sour the final memory of a team that, for most of the season, deserved better than that.
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