Celtics 103, Knicks 73: ‘At least they didn’t get mercy ruled’

The New York Knicks battled hard against the Boston Celtics for three quarters on Wednesday before eventually getting obliterated in the final frame and losing by a score of 103-73 at TD Garden in Boston.

The loss snapped a brief winning streak of two games for the Knicks, who got out to a pretty decent start and only trailed by five at the half, thanks to a strong first half from Enes Kanter. New York’s favorite champion of trash talk finished with 17 points and 17 rebounds in just 27 minutes of game action.

The home side started to turn things on in the second half, outscoring the Knicks 31-20 in the third quarter before New York went stone cold offensively, to the tune of just eight points in the fourth quarter and a rather embarrassing 30 point loss to the Eastern Conference favorites. As P&T’er Ewing Finger Roll of Doom noted, they should be thankful the NBA lacks a mercy rule.

Notes:

— Kristaps Porzingis followed up Monday’s stellar performance in MSG with a more middling effort tonight. The Unicorn only had 16 points and four rebounds in 35 minutes of play, despite recording a block for the 20th straight game. He was also put on a poster by the Celtics young star, Jaylen Brown.

— One source of frustration this season amongst some Knick fans has been the inconsistent play of 19 year-old rookie Frank Ntilikina. The French Prince of New York has had moments of brilliance followed by multiple games of futility, to quote the legendary Clyde Frazier. Tonight he looked sharp initially, scoring five points in the opening quarter, which included an open three. However, he didn’t play many minutes in the second half and when he did play, there wasn’t much production there. So continues the tale of two different players.

— One thing that was unsurprising was how poorly the ‘Bockers shot the ball, especially in the second half. The Knicks shot just 32.2 percent for the game (28 of 87). They were outscored by a whopping total of 53-28 in the second half, including 22-8 in the fourth quarter.

— The only other Knick that scored in double figures tonight (outside of Enes and KP) was the immortal Michael Beasley. Hard to believe that the walking bucket has been in the league for 10 years already, yet still just turned 29 years of age earlier this month.

— Damyean Dotson got some minutes tonight, which was cool, I guess. Hopefully we can see more of him and fellow G-League product Trey Burke going forward, seeing as the whole point of the rest of the season should be a top 10 draft pick and (possibly?) a new head coach. I’d prefer someone calling the shots who’s rotations in the fourth quarter make some resemblance of sense.

— New York finished with a record of 5-11 in the month of January, a 31-day period that included 12 games on the road to just four home games.

The Knicks will continue this long stint of games away from the friendly confines of the Garden as they’ll visit Milwaukee on Friday for first of two games versus Bucks in five days.