Injuries for the Knicks: Injuries really hurt the Knicks in game two. Chauncey Billups had a strained left knee and had to miss game two. Billup's replacement at point guard, Toney Douglas, struggled shooting during the game. He was just 5 for 16 from the floor and finished the game with 14 points. The Knicks also lost their star power forward Amar'e Stoudemire in the second quarter due to back spasms. Stoudemire said, "I could hardly move. I was trying to play through it. Once I felt that sharp pain, I couldn't take it... I felt it really get tight one me. I've never had back spasms before."
Doc Rivers does it again: Doc Rivers has pressed all the right buttons at the end of the Celtic's first two playoff games. In game 2, with his team down by 1 point with 19 seconds remaining in the game, Doc drew up a play to get KG the ball down in the post. Although Garnett had struggled up to that point in the game, only making 5 of his 15 shot attempts, Rivers thought that the 6'11 Garnett could shot over Jared Jeffries. Kevin hit a hook shot over his left shoulder to give the Celtics a one point lead with 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Jeffries said, "It was a tough shot. We wanted to send him middle and not give him his baseline shot, which is his bread-and-butter shot, and he made it. When he went middle, he made a tough, contested shot." Celtics coach Doc Rivers said, "KG struggled a little bit offensively, but like I said the other day with Ray, we trust all of our guys," coach Doc Rivers said. "We drew up the play and it was for Kevin or Paul. If they tried to deny the ball to Paul, I told Rondo that means that Kevin has to be open because there's only a certain amount of bodies on the floor.
"And they did try to deny Paul, which allowed us to get a deep post for Kevin. Rondo made a great cut so they couldn't double team; he was the only guy under the basket. They double-teamed and he was sitting there by himself. And we put Delonte [West] on the floor so we had more shooting. And it was a great shot for [Garnett]." Paul Pierce said about the decisive offensive play, "I think Kevin is the first option when he comes and down-screens for me. If he's open, Coach wants me to give it to him. And then, if not, that's where I get the ball up top for a pick-and-roll. The execution was key. Fortunately that was a play we drew up this morning. That's all about paying attention to the X's and O's and concentrating on executing down the stretch."
Knicks final possession: In a possession where the Knicks needed to score, they left Jared Jeffries on the floor, who is not very skilled on the offensive side of the ball. Carmelo Anthony got the ball on the right wing with 9 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Big Baby Glen Davis once again left Jeffries, as he was constantly doing during the fourth quarter, to double team Melo. Melo gave the ball to Jeffries who was wide open under the hoop. However, instead of laying the ball up. Jeffries turned the other way to try and make a pass to Bill Walker but the ball was stolen. Jeffries said about the play, "Looking at the tape, I should have shot it. I felt like KG was coming down. I tried to dump the ball off to Bill [Walker], and KG had his hand down. So when I tried to pass the ball to Bill cutting to the rim, he got a hand on it."
Last few seconds of the game: After the madness with the Jeffries play, many people forget the let down on the other end of the floor by the Knicks. With 4.1 seconds remaining in the game, the Knicks let the Celtics kill the clock until there was only 0.6 seconds remaining in the game. Although Anthony had a spectacular game with 42 points, he had a mental lapse on the final play. Delonte West pushed off Anthony and then sprinted into the backcourt. However, Anthony didn't follow him and West was in the backcourt all alone and was able to burn nearly the entire clock. Melo said, “I couldn’t get out there, I couldn’t get out there. I don’t want to fall flat now. I think Doc Rivers drew up a hell of a play though, man. A lot of us thought that the ball was coming in the front court, he threw it in the back court, it took a lot of time off the clock. You’ve got to take your hat off to Doc for drawing up a hell of a play like that.” Mike D'Antoni said that, "He [Anthony] was tired," which is no excuse for not running after your men to foul him as quickly as possible, so you have more time for a final shot. Also, the Knicks couldn't bring their final shot up to half court because D'Antoni didn't save any timeouts.
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