Let's have 81 more games just like that one.
The New York Knicks opened the season with a thrilling victory, surviving a dramatic comeback by the Boston Celtics to win 138-134 in double overtime.
The Knicks seemed on their way to an easy victory at the end of regulation until Jaylen Brown hit a contested triple from the logo with 6.1 seconds remaining to pull Boston within one. Two Julius Randle free throws extended the Knicks' lead back to three with 4.8 seconds left.
Then trouble -- and a whole lot of Game 1 fun -- happened.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
As the Celtics pushed the ball down the court, the Knicks left Marcus Smart open for a 26-footer from behind the arc that he drained at the buzzer, sending the game to overtime with a 116-116 tie.
From there the two Eastern Conference rivals exchanged blows -- and not the defensive kind. The Celtics and Knicks scored a dozen each in the first four minutes of overtime with Jayson Tatum and Evan Fournier leading the way for each side, respectively.
The final 60 seconds of the first overtime period resulted no such fire and fury offensively as each side ran out of gas and drew to another tie at 128 apiece.
Sports
The two teams continued to exchange leads in the second overtime, with Tatum's finger-roll plus the foul giving the Celtics a 134-133 lead with 1:05 left. Fourier responded with a 3 that put the Knicks up by two with just under one minute left. Off a Tatum miss, Derrick Rose followed with a runner off the glass to seal the win at 138-134.
Randle had 35 points, nine assists and eight rebounds to lead the Knicks. Fournier, in his Knicks debut, had 32 points. Brown led the Celtics with a career-high 46 points, going 8-for-14 from long range.
