Celtics-Knicks and Bruins-Rangers? The Boston-New York playoff duels would be good times, and other thoughts.
By Dan Shaughnessy Globe Staff, Updated May 12, 2024,
Picked-up pieces while dreaming of Celtics-Knicks and Bruins-Rangers in simultaneous conference championships at the two Gardens …
▪ Celtics-Knicks. Bruins-Rangers. Boston-New York. The New (1995) Boston Garden and the vintage 1968 Madison Square Garden. The Sports Hub vs. The Fan. Matt Damon vs. Spike Lee. Williams vs. DiMaggio. Real clam chowder vs. Manhattan clam chowder. “Cheers” vs. “The Honeymooners.”
The Celtics got back on track Saturday night in Cleveland, beating the Cavaliers, 106-93, to take a 2-1 series lead. The Green Team is a virtual lock to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.
Same with the New York Rangers, who are up, 3-1, in their series with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The gritty Knicks? Sustaining new injuries every day, they take a 2-1 series lead into Sunday’s Game 4 at Indiana.
It’s the Bruins we’re all worried about. The B’s trail the Panthers, 2-1, going into Game 4 at the Garden Sunday night. The Bruins were badly outplayed in Games 2 and 3, surrendering 10 consecutive goals over two losses.
But it’s playoff hockey and Boston winning three of the next four is not impossible. Which means that Celtics vs. Knicks and Bruins vs. Rangers is still a possibility.
Boston-New York times two would be a throwback to the 1970s when I was at Holy Cross (lots of New York/New Jersey students) and every victory by the Celtics over the Knicks or the Bruins over the Rangers would result in somebody running down a dormitory corridor and pounding on the doors of kids from Morristown and Forest Hills Gardens.
Look it up, young people. In 1972, the Bobby Orr Bruins beat the Rangers in the Stanley Cup finals just a few weeks after the Willis Reed Knicks beat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. A year later, we had the Bruins losing a first-round series to the Rangers three weeks before the Celtics lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals to the Knicks.
The two cities collided in both sports again in the spring of 2013 when the Celtics lost a first-round series to the Knicks three weeks before the Bruins beat the Rangers in Round 2 of the NHL bakeoff.
What’s different this time is the prospect that these potential Boston-New York conference final matchups would run concurrently in the third and fourth weeks of May. At the two Gardens. Every other night for two weeks.
A festive fortnight of fury and fun, this would be the ultimate smorgasbord of Boston’s spring sports. At this moment, we are in a 12-night stretch with one of our winter teams playing a postseason game every night, and this could happen again with the Knicks and Rangers providing the opposition.
Hop on the Acela. Better yet, bring back the old Eastern Airlines Shuttle with its $12 student standby fares from Boston to LaGuardia. Put “Do The Right Thing” on a flatscreen loop. Play Sinatra’s “New York, New York” 24/7. Raise a Curtis Martin coffee mug to the Parcells-Kraft Border War, and light votive candles in front of your Jason Varitek/A-Rod Rawlings-sandwich photo shrine.
Seriously. Two weeks of playoff Celtics-Knicks and Bruins-Rangers would be almost as good/bad as long ago days when a Rangers fan tried to stab Derek Sanderson as the Bruins center was boarding a bus at MSG; or December of 1979 when Mike Milbury and teammates jumped into the stands and pummeled a Rangers fan with his own shoe; or May of 1984 when Cedric Maxwell mocked Bernard King’s gait and declared, “Ain’t no way any [expletive] who walks like this is gonna get 40 off me!” (King scored 43 in Game 4 at MSG, but the Celtics won the series in seven.)
Ah, good times.
Go Knicks. Go Bruins. Go Rangers. Go Celtics. Give us two weeks of conference finals in our two magic Gardens.