NEW YORK — You’d be hard-pressed to find many who actually believed the New York Knicks would take full advantage of the Boston Celtics apparently being on the ropes and issue a knockout punch after two shocking comeback wins on the road.
That’s because the Celtics put themselves there and rope-a-doped the Knicks into falsified hope, that returning to a crazed Madison Square Garden was going to bring out the absolute best in the home team.
It almost feels annoying at this point. The defending champion Celtics are seemingly creating new challenges for themselves on the road to a repeat, that the mere competition of it isn’t enough.