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May 6 1990: New York beats Boston 121-114 in Game 5 to win series, 3-2
The Knicks hadn’t won in 26 tries at the Boston Garden entering Game 5, over six years’ worth of losses on the Celtics’ home floor.
The C’s were older but Boston wasn’t getting any lousier.
Larry Bird averaged 24 a game in 1990-91, 75 contests and 7.5 assists per game. Kevin McHale hit for 21 a night, 24-year old Reggie Lewis scored 17 a game in only 32 minutes. Dennis Johnson, in his final season, turned the ball over 117 times in 75 games.
The Celtics won 52 times and had a top-six offense, nobody got an offensive rebound against them, and Boston won the first two games of this series at the Garden by a combined 40 points.
The deciding Game 5 shoulda been Boston’s turf, Celtic cleats were familiar with the territory and Boston was due a semifinal rematch against the champs from Detroit. New York was nobody’s underdog.
Yet these Knicks pulled it off, and in Boston:
Patrick Ewing’s 31 points and ten (10!) assists led New York, Charles Oakley grabbed 17 rebounds with one hand, Knick point guard Maurice Cheeks played every minute and scored 11 of his 21 points in a decisive third quarter surge.
“This is as low as it gets,” Bird spat after the loss.
“This is unbelievable.”
New York lost 10 of 16 games (and six of eight at Madison Square Garden) before it found out on March 24 that Charles Oakley would have to miss the rest of 1989-90’s regular season — six-to-eight weeks — with a broken left hand.
Oak injured it in the first quarter of an Orlando contest he’d play 40 minutes in — dude grabbed 19 boards and six NBA fouls with a broken hand.
“It's a big loss for us,” Knick swingman Johnny Newman relayed to Newsday.
“He not only rebounds, but he does the other little things, the intangibles that you don't notice. We're going to really have to come together now.”
The Knicks limped to a 6-7 record and the fifth seed in the Eastern bracket, abandoning home court hopes for the first round while Kenny “Sky” Walker and Kiki “Opposite of Sky” VanDeWeghe traded beats at the forward positions.
Oakley returned for Game 1 in Boston but Knick coach Stu Jackson sunk the forward on the bench, the same spot he’d sit in for Game 2 — Oakley offering 19 points and 11 rebounds in 37 combined minutes of second team action.
Boston ran up 2-0 in the series with Walker and VanDeWeghe starting, each pulling a total of six rebounds over the pair of defeats.
Game 3 shifted back to New York, where Oakley found his spot in the starting lineup awaiting him — 13 boards (six offensive), 14 points and five assists in Game 3, and a plus-27 in 29 minutes of six-foul work in the Knicks’ Game 4 blowout victory.
This wasn’t all Oakley brought back to New York.
Following an embarrassing, 29-point blowout loss in Game 2, Oakley rapped his teammates as “selfish” in the face of a Celtic club that sprang for 46 beautiful assists (16 belonging to Larry Bird) on the way toward 157 Celtic points in the victory.
New York’s first practice in the wake of Oakley’s comments scrimmaged “so intense,” Knick coach Stu Jackson revealed later, “that I had to shorten practice for fear someone would get injured.”
The Knicks switched Oakley onto Robert Parish in time for the trip back to MSG, ensuring Patrick Ewing’s double-team-less duty on Kevin McHale. With no available lanes to fill, the Celtics dropped both contests in New York
Ewing was in the midst of a breakout season, adapting and growing within every game.
Game 3 saw the 27-year old center struggle for his 33 points, he needed 34 shots, while Game 4 pictured Ew grabbing seven steals, 13 rebounds and five assists to position with his 18-24 shooting and 44 points.
Game 5 was gonna be at Boston, though.
“When you’re in the Garden,” Bird opined later that month, “you should win these kinds of games.”
Larry Bird didn’t see it coming.
“We started off really good, but it went back and forth. I kept waiting for us to run off 10 or 12 points, but it didn't happen. I'm as shocked as anybody else.”
Bird copped a team-high 31 points in Game 5, with nine rebounds. In his final NBA game, Dennis Johnson enjoyed a 21-point, 10-assist throwback effort as Boston led by four at the half.
From the Washington Post’s David Aldridge:
Midway through the third, though, the Celtics made a push. Bird's drive and a three-point play by Lewis made it 73-66 at 6:42. A couple of baskets by Boston would have had New York on the ropes.
Jackson called time.
“We knew there would be a moment of truth for us," he said, “and the moment came when we were seven down. I just told them: ‘This is your moment. What are you going to do?’ And they came out and dug down defensively.”
The Knicks held the Celtics to one field goal in the next 5:49. And they pecked away. The 33-year-old Cheeks took over, scoring eight of the next 12 Knicks points on his usual variety of moves. His spinning layin through a thicket of taller Celtics' arms at 3:03 of the third gave New York a 78-77 lead.
Bird missed a dunk at 4:30 in the fourth quarter (any remaining YouTube footage has been scrubbed) and Ewing’s three-pointer with 121 seconds to go left his Knicks up a dozen.
The center dished 10 assists in the win, adding four blocks and 31 points.
“Patrick did a great job making the plays out of the low post,” Bird explained later. “If we doubled him he made the pass, and if we didn't double-team he made the basket.”
“He was a monster. I thought it was one of Patrick’s defining moments,” Stu Jackson told the New York Post in 2011.
“Early in his career, as great of an offensive player as he was, he didn’t make the best decisions when people threw different looks at him. In that particular game, he made every right decision you could possibly make.”
Knick forward Gerald Wilkins started, guarded Bird, and finished with a dozen points.
While the rest of his Knick teammates spent Saturday night in Boston, Wilkins was in Chattanooga the night before Game 5, at his wife’s side as she delivered daughter Jasmyn Alexandria.
Wilkins got into Boston at 8:30 that morning, in time for the afternoon tip
“When she grows up, I'm going to tell her she was born on the day when we beat the Celtics, something neither I, nor my teammates could accomplish in six years and it came during the all-important playoffs.”
Happy birthday, Jasmyn Wilkins.
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This date in playoff history: Patrick Ewing wins in Boston