The Boston Celtics suffered a shock defeat against the New York Knicks while the Oklahoma City Thunder were beaten by the Denver Nuggets in the first games of their Conference play-off semi-finals.
The Celtics, the reigning champions, were on the wrong end of an 108-105 overtime defeat at home in the opening match of their Eastern Conference best-of-seven series.
Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby each scored 29 points for the Knicks, who fought back from being 20 points behind during the third quarter.
“This team has fought all year, and been a pretty good road team,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau.
“It’s one game. There’s a lot of emotional highs and lows in the play-offs, but no matter what happens you have to keep moving forward.”
Brunson missed a lay-up with three seconds left in regulation while Jayson Tatum, who was the joint-top scorer for the Celtics with 23 points, missed a long-range effort at the buzzer with the score at 100-100 before the Knicks sealed the win in overtime.
“We left some of their good shooters open,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. “There’s detail stuff that we have to be better at.”
Game two in the series will be played at 19:00 local time (00:00 Thursday BST) in Boston on Wednesday.
The Thunder, who finished top of the Western Conference, were beaten 121-119 by a visiting Nuggets side inspired by Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon.
Jokic registered 42 points, 22 rebounds and six assists for the Nuggets, while Gordon – after Chet Holmgren missed two free throws for Thunder – went up the other end and scored a game-winning three-pointer in the closing seconds.
Gordon finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds.
Denver were 13 points behind at one stage of the fourth quarter but ended it with a 19-6 run to go 1-0 up in the series.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander top scored for Thunder as he tallied 33 points,10 rebounds and eight assists.
“I didn’t think our execution was as clean as it can be,” said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault. “But we’ll learn from it. It’s a series.”
Game two of the series will take place at 21:30 local time (03:30 Thursday BST) in Oklahoma on Wednesday.
