He caught the ball and rose immediately, launching a three over the late-arriving White.
A heartbeat later, the ball swished through the net.
Chen let it fly and buried the three!
The lead grew to fifteen.
The Celtics promptly called another timeout.
The Knicks' relentless offensive surge was on the verge of breaking them.
Facing that wing-heavy lineup again, they had found no answer. They looked even worse than they had in the third quarter.
A starting five once hailed by fans as the most balanced and complete in the league had been torn apart head-on by the New York Knicks in the crucial stretches of the third and fourth quarters.
Few fans had imagined the Celtics could find themselves in such a position. Neither had their front office.
They had spent a fortune assembling a star-studded roster, a championship contender. After a season of building chemistry and waiting out Porzingis's injury, they had folded before the Knicks—before Chen Xi—with astonishing ease.
That would be hard for anyone to accept...
But reality was cruel.
A team's strength could not be judged by its roster on paper or its payroll alone.
Even though they had braced for it, the impact Chen Xi had on the game still surpassed what the Celtics' coaches and front office had expected.
If only we'd tried trading Tatum for Chris back then...
The final buzzer sounded, bringing the Knicks and Celtics' last meeting of the season to an end.
The final score stood at 145–134.
The New York Knicks had won by eleven points.
With that, the New York Knicks had officially tied the historic record set by the Golden State Warriors!
From now on, the two teams would share the league record of 73 regular-season wins.
Of course, that "from now on" might not