Thursday night’s NBA playoff action delivered two close games filled with fourth-quarter thrills.
The New York Knicks advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals after narrowly escaping the Detroit Pistons 116-113.
Tied 113-113 with 5.1 seconds remaining, the New York Knicks’ Jalen Brunson hit a game-winning 3-pointer to beat the Detroit Pistons 116-113 and keep New York’s playoff journey alive. The Knicks move on to play the Boston Celtics in the second round, which begins Monday at TD Garden.
Advertisement
The LA Clippers forced a Game 7 in their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets with a 111-105 win.
Denver went on an 11-2 run in the fourth quarter to cut the Clippers’ lead to six points with 2:43 remaining, but it wasn’t enough for the Nuggets, who entered the night with a 3-2 series lead, to hold off LA. The series returns to Denver for a winner-take-all Game 7 on Saturday.
Knicks 116, Pistons 113
(New York wins series 4-2)
Jalen Brunson saves the Knicks
Brunson got the last laugh in Detroit, again, and it saved the Knicks from more disappointment.
After he crossed up Ausar Thompson and drilled the 3, the Pistons turned the ball over on the next possession with a chance to tie. Brunson, who has been dealing with an ankle injury, scored 40 points despite being hounded by Thompson.
JALEN BRUNSON FROM 3 TO WIN IT FOR THE KNICKS 🔥🔥🔥
KNICKS ARE ADVANCING TO EASTERN CONFERENCE SEMIS!!!#NBAPlayoffs presented by Google pic.twitter.com/sGmjcWhNdj
— NBA (@NBA) May 2, 2025
New York had two separate double-digit leads that it squandered in the game, leading by 15 in the first half and by 11 going into the fourth. The Knicks’ offense was either playing fast with ball movement or stagnant and loose with the ball. New York traded its struggling third quarters for a bad second quarter in which the Pistons outscored the Knicks by 16.
In the end, though, Detroit did some fumbling of its own and dropped a five-point lead in the final minutes.
The Knicks will face a Celtics team that they haven’t beaten all season. It’ll be an uphill climb for New York to be competitive with the defending champions, but a chance is better than no chance, which is what was close to happening if not for Brunson’s heroics multiple times throughout this series. — James L. Edwards III, Knicks beat writer
Advertisement
Pistons fall short but should be celebrated
It all came down to the fourth quarter. The Pistons won the second 38-22, and the Knicks won the third 37-24. Detroit and New York traded blows throughout the fourth, with the crowd at Little Caesars Arena going through a rollercoaster of emotions.
But Brunson stepped up to score his 40th point of the evening in what would be the game winner. In one possession, the Pistons’ season came to a sudden end. Detroit had one final play to even the score, but Cade Cunningham was double-teamed and kicked to Malik Beasley, who let the ball slip off his fingers and out of bounds.
Although the Pistons fell short in six games, this is undoubtedly a season that should be celebrated.
After winning a franchise-worst 14 games in 2023-24, Detroit returned to relevance this season and took third-seeded New York to six games. The team did it without starting shooting guard Jaden Ivey and valuable role player Isaiah Stewart, who played just 19 minutes in Game 1 before right knee inflammation kept him off the court for the rest of the series.
An offseason of difficult decisions for the Pistons begins now. — Hunter Patterson, Pistons beat writer
Clippers 111, Nuggets 105
(Series tied 3-3)
How did the Clippers pull this off?
We learned from the Minnesota Timberwolves’ shooting misadventure in Game 5 at the arena formerly known as STAPLES Center that you can survive basement-level shooting if you do the other things at a high level. The Timberwolves closed out the Los Angeles Lakers despite missing 40 3s, partly because they committed two fewer turnovers than the Lakers, and partly because Rudy Gobert got more offensive rebounds than the entire Lakers roster.
In the first quarter of Game 6, the Clippers missed 9 of 10 3s while Denver’s Jamal Murray scored 12 points, threatening to TKO the Clippers again. The Clippers got James Harden going for 17 points in the second quarter, but the team missed 18 of 22 first-half 3s. LA also forced eight Nuggets turnovers in the second quarter.
Advertisement
Ivica Zubac got a put-back of a missed Harden 3 to give the Clippers a 58-57 halftime lead, an appropriate credit to the possession battle I speak of.
If a team makes 61.5 percent from the field — like the Nuggets did in the first half — and finds itself trailing, that team is probably in trouble. And that was the case, as the Clippers supplemented shooting 50 percent from the field by having five fewer turnovers and two more offensive rebounds than the Nuggets.
The Clippers’ jump shots woke up in the third quarter. They made 4 of 9 3s while maintaining a healthy edge in the possession battle, getting three more offensive rebounds and making two fewer turnovers than the Nuggets. That helped the Clippers bring a 90-79 lead into the fourth quarter.
A 12-0 run for the Clippers in Game 6 on TNT!
A win forces a Game 7 in Denver ⚔️#NBAPlayoffs presented by Google pic.twitter.com/vTgh1IJwYq
— NBA (@NBA) May 2, 2025
The Nuggets finally started beating the Clippers in the possession battle in the fourth quarter, getting eight offensive rebounds to the Clippers’ two and having one fewer turnover. LA’s legs were dead, as the Clippers missed 6 of 7 shots in the paint in the fourth quarter. But the Clippers also made 6 of 11 shots outside the paint, including 4-of-8 from 3.
This is complementary basketball. It’s not always a make-or-miss league. Sometimes you need to force some turnovers and rebounds, especially until the stars and the shots come around. Overall, the Nuggets had only one more offensive rebound than the Clippers (10-9) while the Clippers had seven fewer turnovers than the Nuggets in a game decided by six points.
Since the Clippers played a complementary game, they will board one more flight together for a chance to advance to the Western Conference semifinals. — Law Murray, Clippers beat writer
How LA defended Nikola Jokić
The Clippers’ ability to defend Nikola Jokić in the second half led to a Game 7.
Advertisement
The double-teams that Jokić found a way around in the last two games were more effective in Thursday night’s Game 6, particularly in the second half. The misses and turnovers the Clippers forced Jokić into allowed the Clippers to race to a double-digit lead, a lead the Nuggets were unable to fully erase down the stretch.
LA’s big adjustment was Nic Batum, whose activity on both ends of the floor made Jokić’s life miserable. Now, the Nuggets have to find a solution to the Batum adjustment in Game 7, because the decision by Clippers coach Ty Lue to put Batum into the second-half opening lineup changed Game 6 on both ends of the floor. — Tony Jones, NBA staff writer
(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
