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NBA: Knicks stun Celtics with another big comeback, Thunder roll over Nuggets

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Mikal Bridges scored all of his 14 points in the fourth quarter before making his second straight game-clinching steal, and the New York Knicks overcame a 20-point deficit again to beat the Boston Celtics 91-90 on Wednesday night for a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Jalen Brunson scored 17 points for New York and made two free throws with 12.7 seconds left for a 91-90 lead. Jayson Tatum then could not get to the rim, and Bridges moved in to bat the ball away and recover it.

Josh Hart had 23 points and Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 17 rebounds for the Knicks, who will host Game 3 on Saturday.

Jaylen Brown and Derrick White scored 20 points apiece for the Celtics, who were 10 for 40 from 3-point range after going 15 for 60 in Game 1.

Tatum was limited to 13 points on 5-for-19 shooting for the Celtics, who went more than eight minutes without a field goal in the fourth quarter.

Teams that win the first two games of a best-of-seven series on the road win the series 85.7% of the time. The Knicks took the opener when Bridges stole the ball away from Brown with a second left in overtime.

Kristaps Porzingis did not start after sitting out the second half of Game 1 with an illness. He came off the bench for just the fifth time in his NBA career and finished with eight points and four rebounds in 14 minutes.

Despite their shooting struggles, the Celtics found some traction late in the third quarter, using a 16-6 run – keyed by their effort on the defensive end – to turn a 10-point lead into a 73-53 advantage late in the period.

It was 84-68 after Payton Pritchard's 3-pointer with 8:40 to play, but the Celtics would not make another basket until Tatum's driving dunk with 18.5 seconds remaining.

Thunder go big in record-setting rout

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points in three quarters, and the Oklahoma City Thunder set league and team records in a 149-106 win over the Denver Nuggets that tied the Western Conference semifinal series at one game apiece.

Oklahoma City set an NBA playoff record for first-half points with 87, surpassing the 86 scored by the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on June 9, 2017. Chet Holmgren, who missed two critical free throws late in Game 1, made a pair with one second remaining in the second quarter to set the record and give the Thunder an 87-56 lead.

The Thunder tied the record for points in any half of a playoff game. Milwaukee had 87 in the second half against Denver on April 23, 1978.

Oklahoma City became the first home team to win a game in the second round. Game 3 is Friday in Denver.

Gilgeous-Alexander made 11 of 13 field goals, all 11 of his free throws and had eight assists. He led eight players who scored in double figures.

Russell Westbrook led the Nuggets with 19 points. Nikola Jokic, who had 42 points and 22 rebounds for Denver in a Game 1 win, had just 17 points and eight rebounds on Wednesday before fouling out late in the third quarter.

The crowd cheered for Westbrook, the ex-Thunder star, when he entered Game 1 as a reserve for Denver, but booed him shortly after he entered Game 2. Westbrook got called for a technical foul moments later, and Gilgeous-Alexander made the free throw to make it 34-13.

The Thunder led 45-21 at the end of the first quarter after shooting 71.4% from the field and setting a team record for points in a quarter in a playoff game.