The New York Knicks took a commanding 3-0 series lead with a convincing 90-76 win over the Boston Celtics on Friday night. The Knicks will now have a chance to sweep the series on Sunday afternoon.
Knicks vs. Celtics Game 3, NBA Playoffs 2013: Camelo Anthony leads Knicks to 90-76 win
New York continued to really dig in on the defensive end, forcing 17 turnovers and holding the Celtics to just 40 percent shooting from the floor.
As has been the case throughout the series, the Celtics just haven’t been able to consistently score. The Knicks, on the other hand, caught fire from behind the three-point arc and never looked back, cruising to the 14-point victory. As a team, New York hit 48 percent of their shot attempts and went 11-for-27 from deep.
With a little more than seven minutes left on the clock, J.R. Smith clocked Jason Terry in the face with an intentional elbow. Smith was ejected and Terry made two free throws to cut the deficit to 17. It seemed as if Boston was poised to make one final push, but a couple of big shots from Carmelo Anthony and Raymond Felton answered any kind of run that was potentially coming.
Even with a boisterous home crowd behind them, the Celtics seemed to be outworked by the Knicks throughout. It seemed every loose ball went to the visitors, and very little was done to keep Felton and Jason Kidd, who combined for 16 assists, out of the lane.
Anthony started off slowly as Boston shifted nearly all of their defensive focus to him, but he still managed to score a team-high 26 points. Smith continued to have a fine series with 15 points in limited action. Kenyon Martin won't get much publicity in the box score, but his strong defense on Kevin Garnett really paid dividends throughout.
Boston turned the ball over 17 times and shot just 40 percent from the floor. They received just 10 points from their bench players. Jeff Green led the way with 21 points, but also gave the ball away five times. Paul Pierce was invisible for much of the first half and finished with an inefficient 17 points.
Game 4 is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon. Closing out a team on the road is one of the toughest things to do in sports, but the Knicks are really on a roll. No team has ever come back to win a playoff series when down three games to none.
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