Apparently, the New York Knicks caught the memo and escaped before the Atlanta Hawks had a chance to join the party.
This year’s Easter Conference playoffs have turned wild, and the first round isn’t over yet. Three of the four lower-seeded teams in the Eastern Conference caused their respective series to reach Game 7 this week, the most for the quarterfinal round of the NBA Playoffs since 2014.
R.J. Barrett put on an exclamation point on the East trifecta when his last-second three-pointer bounced in during a 112–110 victory for the No. 5 seed Toronto Raptors. Barrett’s shot bounced high in the air after it hit the rim, and it dropped straight into the net.
“And … glory be to God—I didn’t make nothing the whole fourth quarter, whole overtime—for that shot to drop,” Barrett told reporters afterward.
That shot forced Game 7 with the No. 4 seed Cleveland Cavaliers, as the Raptors became the third team with a shot for a full-series upset. The No. 7 seed Philadelphia 76ers did it first on Thursday with a 106–93 win over the No. 2 seed Boston Celtics in Game 6.
Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey has been one of the top playoff performers in the league with 26.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game. Philadelphia rallied from a 3–1 deficit with strong play from Maxey, center Joel Embiid, and forward Paul George.
“We stayed together. We stayed confident. We stayed poised,” George told reporters after Game 6.
“We’ve given ourselves a chance here, [after] being down 3-1, with an unbelievable opportunity to go play a Game 7 in Boston.
“We’re still alive. We’re still fighting, we’re still working, we’re still staying together. And, honestly, that’s all we can be happy and proud about as a group: that we are connected in these moments, and we’re giving it our best shot.”
The eighth-seeded Orlando Magic had the opposite with a 3–1 series lead over the top-seeded Detroit Pistons, but Detroit rallied to win 116–109 in Game 5 before a historic Game 6.
Orlando looked ready to knock out the Pistons on Friday with a 62–38 lead in the third quarter, but the Magic cratered amid Detroit’s furious rally. The Pistons won 93–79, as the Magic missed 23 shots in a row, and Orlando blew one of the biggest leads in postseason history.
“We took each possession at a time, both offensively and defensively, and tried our best to execute on every single possession,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff told reporters after Game 6. “Every screening action, every rebound, all the small things. We went out and focused on that. And we put ourselves in position to win.”
The Celtics will look to position themselves to win the first Game 7 in the East on Saturday at the TD Garden. Boston has a 22–6 all-time record at home for Game 7s.
Detroit will host the Magic in Game 7 on Sunday, as the Pistons look to win a series for the first time since 2008. The Pistons are 4–0 all-time at home for Game 7s from the Bad Boys era of the 1990s and the Goin’ to Work era in the 2000s.
Cleveland, last year’s top seed, looks to avoid a first-round upset in Game 7 on Sunday. Similar to the Pistons, the Cavaliers have a 4–0 home mark all-time in Game 7s.
Atlanta, the No. 6 seed, looked poised to join the other three lower seeds with a 2-1 series over the No. 3 seed Knicks, but New York won the final three games and bulldozed the Hawks 140–89 in Game 6 on Thursday.
“We’ve always told each other that obviously we want to win, and that’s most important,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson told reporters after Game 6 regarding the series. “We’ve said it a lot. When it comes to decisions like this, it’s about actions.”
New York is the lone team in the East getting extra rest before the next round because of it. None of the first-round series in the Western Conference went seven games, as the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves closed out their respective series in six games this week. The San Antonio Spurs previously won in five games, and the Oklahoma City Thunder swept their first-round series.