Madison Square Garden in the Big Apple was absolutely lit Wednesday night as the New York Knicks hosted the conference-rival Boston Celtics in the 2021-22 season opener for both squads.
Spike Lee was on hand. Jaylen Brown dominated for his Celtics after a long battle with COVID-19. Fans were prepping for a dramatic early-season game on Broadway.
The New York Knicks and Boston Celtics did not disappoint with the home team coming out on top by the score of 138-134 in double overtime.
The drama unfolded toward the end of regulation with New York holding a six-point lead and possessing the ball with 30 seconds left. That’s when it seemed like the Knicks were going to be the same old Knicks.
Up three with just under five seconds left, New York opted not to foul. Instead, it let the Celtics push the ball to the other end of the court where Marcus Smart hit a open three-pointer to force overtime.
After a high-scoring start to the overtime period, both teams went cold. There were absolutely no points scored in the final 2:58 of the extra stanza.
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But once double overtime got going, it was the recently-acquired Evan “don’t Google him” Fournier who ended up putting the Knicks up and sending the team to a season-opening win. That came via a three-pointer with the Celtics up one and 56.1 seconds remaining.
Fournier ended up scoring 32 points on 13-of-25 shooting in New York’s 138-134 victory. Julius Randle led the team with 35 points. Meanwhile, Kemba Walker struggled against his former team in his Knicks debut — scoring 10 points on just 3-of-8 shooting.
For the Celtics, it was all about the performance of Jaylen Brown with others on the team struggling. Just recently recovered from COVID-19, Brown scored 46 points in 46 minutes of action. He picked up the slack for Jayson Tatum, who shot a miserable 7-of-30 from the field.