The Knicks beat the Celtics tonight, 108-103 in the second to last game of the preseason. The Knicks wanted this win and played like it. Their starters played the entire 4th quarter. Doc Rivers used his second unit for nearly all of the final quarter and they almost pulled off the win.
I was not impressed with the C's defense. The regular rotation allowed 89 points through 3 quarters. Considering none of the starters will play tomorrow night, I wanted to see regular season defensive intensity in this game. It was not there.
We saw another solid performance by Kevin Garnett – 11 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks in 23 minutes. He had a couple of sweet dunks (including the one alley-oop in the video clip above).
Marquis Daniels (17 points, 7-11 FG) played his best game. He consistently took advantage of mismatches by bringing the ball into the paint and shooting over smaller guards.
Rajon Rondo (20 points, 9-14 FG, 7 assists) was penetrating at will through the Knicks defense. Did I just type Knicks and defense in the same sentence? Shame on me.
Quotes of the night:
"Cleveland is upper middle class, they're not rich." – Donny Marshall when responding to a comment that the rich teams got richer in the offseason.
"Wherever he went to school they didn't teach him to count to three." – Tommy Heinsohn after a Knicks players was called for defensive three seconds.
In other news, it looks like the NBA will resolve its labor dispute with the referees union before the start of the regular season.
I wanna give a shout out to Brandon, one of our Facebook fans. Are you following us on FB?
Photos from the game, after the jump.
(above images courtesy: AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
(image courtesy: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
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