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The New York Knicks are coming off of their best win of the season on Monday night. Jalen Brunson led his team to an 108-105 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of their second-round series. However, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst doesn’t think that the Knicks are in the clear yet after a historically bad shooting night for the Celtics.
Boston missed a record 45 threes in Game 1, by far their worst shooting night of the entire season. Their poor shooting allowed Brunson and the Knicks to engineer a 20-point comeback and win the game in overtime. Despite that, Windhorst doesn’t think that New York will receive that much help from the Celtics for the rest of the series.
“The Celtics missed 32 open, clean look 3-pointers… I don't think they can count on the Celtics having historically bad shooting nights."
Brian Windhorst after the Knicks' Game 1 win over Boston
(via @ESPNNBA)pic.twitter.com/copfRg3axp
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 6, 2025
““The Celtics missed 32 open, clean look 3-pointers,” Windhorst said, putting the game in context. “I don’t think they can count on the Celtics having historically bad shooting nights.”
Tatum and the Celtics are one of the league’s most accurate teams from deep while also shooting more than anyone else in the NBA. However, their heavy reliance on the deep ball has burned them at points throughout the season, including Monday night. Tatum himself missed 11 threes in the game, one of the worst shooting nights of his entire career.
New York entered Game 1 as the clear underdogs in their series against the defending champs. Winning a road game to kick things off is as good a start as they could have hoped for. With home court advantage in their hands, all the Knicks need to do is hold sway in Madison Square Garden.
This series means more to New York than simply moving on to the Eastern Conference finals. They moved a significant amount of their assets out in order to bring in Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, and OG Anunoby over the course of the last 18 months. The team made those moves with the Celtics in mind, building a team with the best chance to beat them.
Brunson and Co. hope to keep their momentum going in Game 2, but Windhorst’s warning rings true. The defending champs are unlikely to beat themselves like they did on Monday night.
More must-reads:
- Kyrie Irving sets record straight on Kobe Bryant's legacy
- Kyrie Irving reveals why Nets tenure was over before it began
- The 'NBA all-time 50-point game leaders' quiz
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Former DPOY expects hostile reception in Boston
It's been decades since the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers were in the heat of their rivalry. Nevertheless, there's no love lost between the two franchises and their fanbases. Yet, when news broke that Marcus Smart was joining JJ Redick's roster upon completing his buyout from the Washington Wizards, Celtics fans appeared happy for their former guard. After all, Smart has been away from the franchise since being traded in the summer of 2023. Nevertheless, it would appear Smart is expecting a hostile reception when he eventually arrives in the TD Garden wearing a Lakers jersey. He noted how he's expecting a chorus of boos. "I can try to anticipate it," Smart said during his introductory news conference in Los Angeles. "I have no idea, but I can definitely tell and say that I'm expecting a lot of boos. I'm expecting a lot of hate. And it's okay. I understand it." It's hard to envision the Celtics' fan base being too harsh on Smart. It's not as if he declined a new contract with Boston to cross the divide and head to Los Angeles. It's also not like he left the franchise and immediately landed with their rivals. The Celtics chose to part ways with him. All he's doing is maximizing his opportunity for success. Will the crowd boo? Sure. But that's not because of Smart; it's because the Lakers are in town, and there's a genuine disdain between the two teams and fan bases. During his tenure with Boston, Smart helped the team reach five Eastern Conference Finals and one NBA Finals. He cemented himself as one of the best defenders in the NBA, winning the Defensive Player of the Year in 2022. Celtics fans may not be happy to see him in a Lakers jersey, but it seems unlikely that they will show hostility.
Caitlin Clark drops mic on Kelsey Plum's Instagram post
Caitlin Clark might be the most popular figure in women's basketball right now, but she continues to draw shots left and right, both on and off the court. The Iowa product has stayed even keeled and mostly unrattled, but that doesn't mean she won't fight back. That's why, in the light of Kelsey Plum's recent comments, she decided to take matters into her own hands and clapped back at her with a simple, six-word message. Plum shared a picture of her during the WNBA's All-Star Weekend, which showed half of a Nike logo in the background. Clark was quick to spot it and just wrote "Thank u for the Nike ad." This happened just hours after Plum seemingly took a shot at Clark and her Team Clark teammates for reportedly not getting involved in their pre-game protest. “The T-shirt was determined this morning. Not to tattletale, but zero members of Team Clark were very present for that,” Plum revealed. “That really needed to be mentioned,” Sabrina Ionescu added while both laughed. WNBA All-Stars warmed up with a T-Shirt that read 'Pay us what you owe us,' ahead of their new CBA agreement, which is expected to be signed in the offseason. WNBA players get around 9 percent of the league's revenue, and they're asking for a bigger share since most of them also have to play overseas during the offseason because of the salary disparity. Plum is the vice president of the WNBPA, so it's not surprising to see her so involved in the protest and the demands. Then again, it's hard to understand the reasoning behind the tattle telling, as not only does it show that there might not be a united front ahead of these negotiations, but it also drives attention away from where it should be.
The Phillies need to replace this struggling bat at the deadline
Another year, another shot at a championship. Since their last World Series appearance in 2022, a match in which they lost, the Philadelphia Phillies have slid backwards, falling in the NLCS in 2023 and the NLDS in 2024. This year, the Phillies are back on top of the NL East, holding a slim half-game lead over the New York Mets entering Tuesday. Still, their season has been far from spotless. The Phillies have gone through immeasurable difficulties from the bullpen without Jeff Hoffman (signed with Blue Jays), Carlos Estevez (signed with Royals) or Jose Alvarado (PED suspension), especially with Jordan Romano’s descent into the dumpster fire. But with new free-agent signing David Robertson in tow, we can expect some degree of stability from the relief corps going forward — though, not to insinuate that team president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski is done adding bullpen arms. Another sore spot that received plenty of attention the past few months is in the outfield, left field in particular. Among all qualifying left fielders, Max Kepler maintains the second lowest OPS. Much has been made about potentially replacing him, but as bad as he’s been, there is one Philadelphia infielder that has done even worse. Once a promising bat, second baseman Bryson Stott seems to be reaching rock bottom. Below, you can his stats in comparison to that of Kepler’s: (wRC+: weighted runs created plus represents the culmination of a hitter’s offensive achievements where a value of 100 is MLB’s average) Stott has been more proficient than Kepler at recording hits, but Kepler’s power and higher walk rate gives him the edge in overall offensive stats. It was only in 2023, his second year of MLB action, when Stott hit .280/.329/.414 with 15 home runs. Unfortunately, Stott’s productivity began to slide last season. This year, his slump halted in April when he hit .314 on the month, but it quickly resumed in May (.216), worsened in June (.202) and has reached a fever-pitch in July (.132). If the Phillies are going to claw their way back to the Fall Classic, it may be better if Stott’s bat isn’t in the lineup.
Micah Parsons gives frank comments on lack of long-term deal with Cowboys
Micah Parsons is not holding back on his feelings regarding his lack of a long-term deal with the Dallas Cowboys. One of the best pass-rushers in the league, Parsons is heading into the fifth and final year of his contract with the Cowboys. He'll be an unrestricted free agent in 2026 and, right now, he has no guarantees of a long-term contractual future with the Cowboys. After practice on Tuesday, Parsons gave a frank answer when asked about his lack of a long-term deal. The long and short of it is that he's looked around the NFL and has seen top pass-rushers getting massive contracts. The question is, why hasn't Dallas and owner Jerry Jones put that same type of investment into him just yet? "When you go around the league and you see these other teams taking care of their best guys, I seen T.J. [Watt] gotten taken care of. Maxx [Crosby] got taken care of. Myles [Garrett] got taken care of, [and] he's got two years left on his deal," Parsons said, according to Todd Archer of ESPN. "You see a lot of people around the league taken care of, and you wish you had that same type of energy." Parsons has notched 52.5 sacks over his first four seasons. For comparison's sake, Watt has 58.5 sacks in the same time period and Garrett has notched 60. Watt and Garrett are two of the best pass-rushers in recent memory, and Parsons is right there alongside them. As far as how he sees it, he, of course, believes he's the best in the world at what he does. "I feel like I'm the best at what I do," Parsons said. "You can argue whoever, but stats, numbers don't lie. The consistency is there, and the availability is there." Watt just signed a three-year, $123M contract extension with the Pittsburgh Steelers, while earlier this offseason, the Browns signed Garrett to a four-year, $160M extension with $123.5M of that guaranteed. The Cowboys and Jones have a reputation for being stingy negotiators, and they've taken many of their top players to the limit in the past before signing deals. To that point, Parsons seems to be aware that he's not in a unique situation. "This is not like I'm getting treated differently than anybody else. I don't take it personal. I just don't understand," he said. With that said, Parsons is clearly frustrated about the lack of long-term guarantees of his future in Dallas. So much so that he went as far as to say that if the Cowboys don't want him in Dallas, he's happy to move on and take care of business elsewhere. It's worth noting that Jones hasn't helped ease the tension, either. At the start of training camp on Monday, he went as far as to suggest that even if the Cowboys do sign Parsons, that doesn't mean he'll be available because of injury. Jones said that Parsons was injured for six games last season, while in reality, the star pass-rusher missed only four. "I've been pretty consistent. If they don't want me here, they don't want me here and I'll go about my business. I understand the nature of the business," Parsons said. "Like I said, as far as I'm here and under contract, I'll do what I have to perform at the highest level but at the end this is the business. Same way Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones and the other Jerry Jones take care of their family is the same way I need to take care of my family. I've got three kids of my own, so we all need to take care of our own family at the end of the day."
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