The Celtics Coughed Up a 20-Point Lead, and Mikal Bridges Stole Game 1 in Boston

New York Knicks small forward Mikal Bridges fancies himself “a football guy.”

So, when an inbounds pass lofted toward the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown in the closing seconds of overtime Monday — the defending NBA champions trailing by three — Bridges raised his arms and swooped in. He wrestled the ball from Brown, denying him the chance to hoist another Boston trey and sealed a madcap, come-from-behind road win for New York in the opener of an Eastern Conference semifinal.

If wisdom goes that a series doesn’t truly start until the visiting team seizes victory, the Knicks did that a few better — erasing a 20-point, third-quarter deficit to establish a tone.

“We’re just going to keep fighting. That’s who we are,” Bridges said after the game. “We’re not going to [give up] until the clock hits zero, and we’ve been showing it.”

Indeed, New York exhaled as the most prominent digits on the TD Garden scoreboard showed its score as 108 opposite Boston’s 105.

As for the Celtics, they shrieked at a figure you had to squint for or seek out in the box score: Boston labored to 15-for-60 shooting from long range. The Celtics misfired on more 3s — 45 — than the Knicks attempted, 37.

Things were especially straightforward in the third quarter, when 3-pointers accounted for 19 of the Celtics’ 20 shot attempts.

“I have to have better play-calling. [We] have to make shots,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “We have to make some better reads. It’s a combination of all those things.

“We have to be better. You have to make the ones when you’re open. The process of shot quality was good.”

You might expect that last part from the guy who guides the team that attempted the most 3s in the NBA during the regular season.

Still, the Celtics’ No. 10 ranking in 3-point percentage, coupled with a championship pedigree, should suggest a better readiness to proceed with alternatives — especially when an opponent is counterpunching.

Derrick White drilled a trey to put Boston ahead 75–55 with 5:47 left in the third quarter. The Celtics didn’t score again for another 2:21, with Brown, White, Al Horford and Sam Hauser misfiring from deep over that span.

“In those moments when the other team’s got momentum, we can’t just fire up threes,” Brown said. “We’ve got to get to the free-throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket, and then maybe the next 3-pointer feels a little bit better.

“We settled in the second half, a lot. It felt like they were daring us to shoot; they wanted us to shoot those shots. That’s an abnormal game in terms of us shooting the basketball.”

It also was out of the ordinary in terms of results. Boston swept the four-game regular-season series from its Atlantic Division rival, although the most recent meeting was by far the tightest.

The visiting Celtics shot 19-for-49 from distance en route to a 119–117 overtime victory against the Knicks on April 8.

“The important thing for us is to understand what this is,” New York coach Tom Thibodeau said Monday. “It’s one win and then [we have to] understand that we have to reset and get ready for Game 2.”

Resetting before Wednesday’s clash is the Celtics’ objective as well. Recalibrating their offense should also be in play.