Knicks Force Game 5 With Celtics

The Garden party continued for the home team in the opening-round playoff series between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics.

Patrick Ewing scored 44 points Friday night as New York forced a deciding Game 5 with a 135-108 victory at Madison Square Garden.

“I’m surprised at the margin of victory more than anything else,” Coach Stu Jackson said after the Knicks set playoff records for points in a game and a half.

Game 5 will be Sunday at Boston Garden, where the Celtics won the first two games of the series, including a 157-128 victory Saturday, and have beaten the Knicks 26 consecutive times since Feb. 29, 1984.

“The only way to end their home-court advantage is to win the game,” Jackson said. “We hung our heads a little bit the last time we were in Boston. I don’t think that will happen Sunday.”

Said Celtic Coach Jimmy Rodgers: “We had our turn at being embarrassed. We’ve played great in Boston, and they rose to the challenge at New York. Now we have to counterpunch at home.”

Ewing was 18 of 24 from the field and fell two points short of Bernard King’s team single-game playoff scoring record.

“I thought that right from the opening tip we did a great job keeping the tempo to our advantage,” said Ewing, who also had 13 rebounds and a career-high seven of New York’s 18 steals. “We played excellent pressure defense.”

That defense forced the Celtics into 26 turnovers, and the Knicks had 13, giving New York a 47-19 turnover advantage in the two games at Madison Square Garden.

Celtic forwards Larry Bird and Kevin McHale both said the turnovers were the biggest factor in the game.

“We played very badly, not in sync at all,” Bird said. “Our passes were thrown one way when a guy was going the other. The margin of victory doesn’t really matter, only that you got beat. The home court usually means a lot in the NBA, but if we turn the ball over like this again, we can lose again.”

Said McHale: “If we stay this sloppy with the ball, anything can happen. We had 26 turnovers and they scored 46 points off those turnovers. It was not a banner day for the Boston Celtics.”

The Knicks led by eight points at halftime, then took control by starting the third quarter with a 27-17 run for a 92-74 lead. The Celtics got no closer than 11 after that and trailed by as many as 37 in the fourth quarter.

McHale scored 24 points, Reggie Lewis 23 and Bird 21 for Boston. Johnny Newman had 24 points and Gerald Wilkins 20 for New York.

Ewing made his first eight shots and scored 20 points on nine-of-11 shooting in the first quarter, carrying New York to a 36-30 lead. Ewing scored the Knicks’ first 10 points in the opening 2:33.

The Celtics held Ewing to four points in the second quarter. A 15-6 run gave the Celtics the lead, 45-42, with 8:47 remaining in the half.

But Maurice Cheeks scored seven points and Newman had six during a 21-8 run that gave the Knicks a 63-53 lead. New York led at halftime, 65-57.

The Knicks will try to become the third team to come back from a 2-0 deficit to win a best-of-five series.

The Knicks’ previous mark for points in a playoff game was 132.