Brunson (number 11) scored 11 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter ( Reuters )
In the opening games of their Conference playoff semi-finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the Denver Nuggets, and the Boston Celtics were shocked by their loss to the New York Knicks.
In the first game of their Eastern Conference best-of-seven series, the defending champion Celtics suffered a 108-105 overtime loss at home.
The Knicks rallied from a 20-point deficit in the third quarter, led by 29 points from Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby.
"This team has been a pretty good road team and has fought all year," Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said.
"There is only one game. The playoffs are filled with many emotional highs and lows, but you must keep going no matter what.
Jayson Tatum, the Celtics' 23rd-leading scorer, missed a long-range attempt at the buzzer with the score at 100-100 before the Knicks won in overtime, and Brunson missed a lay-up with three seconds remaining in regulation.
"We left some of their good shooters open," Joe Mazzulla, the coach of the Celtics, stated. "There's detail stuff that we have to be better at."
Boston will host the second game of the series on Wednesday at 19:00 local time (00:00 Thursday BST).
The visiting Nuggets, led by Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic, defeated the Thunder, who won the Western Conference, 121-119.
Jokic finished with 42 points, 22 rebounds, and six assists for the Nuggets, while Gordon went up the other end and made the game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds after the Thunder's Chet Holmgren missed two free throws.
Gordon had 14 rebounds and 22 points in the end.
Denver finished the fourth quarter with a 19-6 surge to take a 1-0 series lead after trailing by 13 points at one point.
The Thunder's leading scorer, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, finished with 33 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists.
"I didn't think our execution was as clean as it can be," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault stated. I agree. But it will teach us something. It's a series.
Oklahoma will host the second game of the series on Wednesday at 21:30 local time (03:30 Thursday BST).
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