Miles McBride drained the tiebreaking basket with 8:25 left Saturday night for the host New York Knicks, who squandered all of a 14-point third-quarter lead before rallying to beat the Philadelphia 76ers 111-104 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference first-round series.
Game 2 is scheduled for Monday night, also in New York.
Josh Hart finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds, while Jalen Brunson also scored 22 points to go with seven rebounds and seven assists for the second-seeded Knicks.
McBride had 21 points off the bench, including 13 in the second quarter. Fellow reserve Bojan Bogdanovic added 13 points, while OG Anunoby finished with 11.
“We need everyone. Tonight, it was the bench,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said.
Tyrese Maxey scored 33 points and Joel Embiid had 29 points and eight rebounds for the seventh-seeded 76ers. Kyle Lowry added 18 points and Kelly Oubre Jr. had 10.
Embiid scored the first nine points for the 76ers, who opened the game on an 18-7 run and expanded the lead to as many as 13 at 32-19 on a three-point play by Oubre with 1:14 left in the quarter.
Embiid left the game with 2:37 remaining before halftime after making a thunderous dunk but collapsed to the floor after appearing to hurt his left knee. He returned to start the second half, however, and Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse said Embiid would be reevaluated after the game.
The Knicks scored six of the final eight points of the first, before Bogdanovic and McBride combined to begin the second on an 11-2 run that tied the score at 36-36 with 9:28 left.
Brunson’s basket with 5:31 left in the second quarter gave the Knicks the lead at 42-40. New York gradually expanded its lead before scoring the final nine points of the period to go ahead 58-46.
“We had another one of those second-quarter starts where we didn’t guard anybody,” Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse said.
The Knicks opened a trio of 14-point leads in the third, the last at 65-51 with 10:07 left, before the 76ers mounted a 27-7 run over the next 7:03. Oubre’s 3-pointer put Philadelphia up 78-72, but New York got within a point twice before the visitors ended the period with an 82-79 lead.
“We started the third quarter slowly, but we found a way to win,” Thibodeau said.
Mitchell Robinson’s tip-in gave the Knicks an 84-82 lead with 10:07 left. Tobias Harris answered with a jumper 1:19 later before McBride’s tie-breaking layup. The 76ers got as close as one, but Hart and Anunoby combined to hit all three of their 3-point attempts in the final 1:55 to help New York pull away.
–Field Level Media
