Two teams closed out their first-round series on Thursday night. The Knicks sent Atlanta home and the undermanned Wolves eliminated Denver in an upset. The Celtics, meanwhile, have gone from up 3-1 to having to play a Game 7 on Saturday as the 76ers took them down in Game 6 to even their series.
Let’s take a look at the big winners and losers from Thursday night.
Winner: Knicks’ closeout mentality
Five teams had a chance to close their first-rounds series over the last two nights. The Lakers, Magic and Celtics failed to get it done. The Knicks, suffice it to say, did not.
In one of the most dominant closeout games you will ever see — or any playoff game for that matter — the Knicks absolutely throttled the Hawks 140-89 to end the series 4-2 and move on to face the winner of the Celtics-Sixers series.
Down 2-1 against Atlanta on the heels of consecutive one-point losses, the pressure on the Knicks, who are in Finals-or-bust mode, was cranked up, and they responded with three decisive victories by a combined 96 points.
They were not in any mood to mess around on Thursday and let this get to a Game 7. They led 40-15 after the first quarter and 83-36 at halftime. Do the math. That’s a 47-point halftime lead. Only one team in history has ever held a bigger advantage after two quarters, and that was not in a playoff game.
Biggest halftime leads in NBA history
The lead ballooned as high as 61, and the final disparity of 51 points is the third-largest margin of victory in a closeout game in history. New York’s defense turned up considerably as the series went on, and it was again stifling on Thursday. Meanwhile, OG Anunoby was unbelievable. He has 25 points in the first half. He finished with 29 on 11-of-14 shooting. He made four of his six 3s and scored at every level.
Karl-Anthony Towns joined Walt Frazier as the only two Knicks to ever record multiple playoff triple-doubles. He did it without scoring much, finishing with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. That runs his assist total to 36 in in six games so far this postseason. His playmaking has been so impactful.
Also, more good news for New York: Mikal Bridges finally got going, finishing with 24 points on 10-of-12 shooting. He had a brutal series other than this game. The Knicks need him moving forward.
In the end, what felt like a close series actually wound up being dominated by the Knicks. They outscored the Hawks by 105 points over six games, and again, their only two losses were by one point each.
Loser: Jaylen Brown
The Celtics had a chance to finish off the Sixers and instead wasted it in a 106-93 loss in Game 6. Jaylen Brown had a night to forget. Brown finished with a team-high 18 points, which doesn’t look all that bad, but he spent most of the night trying to bulldoze his way through whatever defender was in front of him — Paul George, Kelly Oubre, VJ Edgecombe, Tyrese Maxey — at the expense of Boston’s offensive rhythm, which, to be fair, has ground to a halt collectively as some of their worst, most stangnant habits are showing up at the worst time.
Brown has 10 offensive fouls this series. He had a team-high five turnovers in Game 6 and now has 22 for the series. He has played well until Thursday, but he hijacked too many possessions trying to do it himself. George ate him up in this game.
Meanwhile, this is a pretty representative of Brown’s overall defensive effort in Game 6.
Bottom line: You can’t go around trumpeting yourself as the best two-way player in the world and then play like this in a closeout game.
Winner: Jaden McDaniels
McDaniels called out everyone but the Denver mayor as a defensive dog (and not the good kind) following Minnesota’s Game 2 win earlier in this series. It’s one thing to talk the talk. It’s quite another to walk the walk, and McDaniels indeed walked all over the Nuggets in basically this entire series and most importantly on Thursday as the Wolves closed out the series in Game 6 without Anthony Edwards, Ayo Dosunmu or Donte DiVincenzo.
McDaniels finished with 32 points and 10 boards. Even with having to assert himself more as a primary scorer with Edwards out, he didn’t commit a single turnover. He is the only player in this postseason to put up 30 and 10 with no turnovers.
Everyone knows McDaniels as a suffocating defender, which he is (he put Jamal Murray in handcuffs on Thursday), but he has been growing exponentially as an offensive threat, both as a floor spacer/secondary scorer and self-creator. Other than the 3-point shooting, which is a major strength of his (he shot the 3 at 41% this season but missed 15 of 17 against Denver), it all showed up in this series — particularly in the closeout game.
Winner: Paul George
George has been very good all series and he was incredible with Philly’s season on the line. George finished with 23 points. He made five of his nine 3s. That puts him at 54% from deep for the series on just under six attempts per game. When he’s clicking, there still aren’t many smoother scorers than George.
George has also been sensational defensively all series. Holding scorers to 0.65 point per isolation as the direct defender is a terrific number.
As good as Tyrese Maxey has been, and with all due respect to Joel Embiid’s heroic return these past three games, there’s a strong argument to be made that George has been the Sixers’ most important player in this series. His within-the-offense production as a third option has been huge, and his defense has been great all season (when he wasn’t hurt or suspended, of course).
Speaking of that suspension, George has said the 25-game absence was sort or a blessing in disguise as it allowed his body to fully heal. It looks like he’s feeling the benefits of that rest at the most important time of the year.
Loser: Jamal Murray
The Nuggets got what they needed from Nikola Jokić (28 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds) to have a shot to push the Wolves to a Game 7, and Cam Johnson gave them the wild-card performance with 27 points (5 for 10 from 3), but Murray couldn’t pull his weight. He finished with 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting as a team-worst -18 for the game.
Murray finished the series averaging 23.7 points, 5.7 assists and five rebounds per game. That looks pretty good until you look at the shooting clips: 35% overall, 26% from 3. He was a volume shooter who did most of his damage with 39 made free throws.
With Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson out, the Nuggets’ defense (already not very good) was going to be playing uphill. They had to win this series with offense, and on top of Jokić being relatively stifled by Rudy Gobert, Murray just did not provide enough shotmaking. Certainly not in the closeout game.
