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Celtics captain Paul Pierce was not willing to accept a series sweep and Jason Terry helped him keep Boston's season alive:


And a look at how things are playing at ESPN New York:

BOSTON -- Kevin Garnett probably didn't understand the gravity of his statement. Neither did Paul Pierce.

Not long after Pierce admitted the Celtics sometimes forget about Garnett on the offensive end, Garnett emerged from the training room and stressed that getting shots on offense isn't what's needed from him.

Really?

That is, frankly, ludicrous for a team that's been as anemic on offense as Boston has been for the majority of its Eastern Conference first-round playoff series with the New York Knicks. But for 17 vital minutes of Boston's 97-90 overtime victory in Game 4 on Sunday, it went out the window, as Garnett suddenly emerged as a needed factor on offense and helped propel Boston back into the series.

Garnett finished Sunday's win with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting, but seven of those came in the fourth quarter and overtime, amid a stretch when Boston's offense once again imploded and the Knicks rallied from a deficit that was as high as 20.

"That's what Kevin has been bringing us when he's out there, when he's not in foul trouble," Pierce said. "But I thought we did a better job of making an effort to go to him. Sometimes we forget about him in the offense, we get too perimeter-oriented taking a lot of jump shots. But Kevin, he's our bread and butter down in the post and we've got to give it to him and play inside-out. Most of the time when we get the ball to Kevin, good things are going to happen."

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BOSTON -- Brandon Bass fouled out with 4:27 to play in regulation and missed much of the late-game fun. But don't let that diminish his contributions to Boston's riveting 97-90 overtime triumph over the New York Knicks in Game 4 of an Eastern Conference first-round series Sunday at TD Garden.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers shuffled Bass back into the starting lineup Sunday and tasked him with the thankless chore of guarding Carmelo Anthony. While foul trouble limited him to 30 minutes 39 seconds of floor time, Bass did all he could to pester Anthony while on the court.

Anthony finished with a game-high 36 points, but needed 35 shots to get there (missing 25 of them). With Bass at the helm, Boston limited Anthony to 3-of-15 shooting for 16 points in the first half while opening as much as a 19-point lead.

Bass might have missed the final nine minutes as the the Knicks rallied ahead and Boston fought back to win in the extra session, but his teammates showered him with praise for his efforts against Anthony.

"Brandon was the star of the game, as far as I’m concerned," Rivers said. "He just defended and did it over and over and over again. There’s a lot of guys that you want to defend; I don’t know if Carmelo would be the one you would pick. And for Brandon to do that, basically the entire game until he fouled out, was terrific for us. We needed that one guy to be able to do that."

Bass treats his defensive strategy against Anthony like classified information, often smiling and saying he can't reveal his secrets. It's not really a secret; Bass just tries hard to stay in front of Anthony and uses his combination of size and athleticism to make things as difficult as possible.

“I tried to make him work," the soft-spoken Bass said. "It led to us getting the win."

Bass' defensive efforts have floated below the radar this season. According to Synergy Sports data, Bass allowed 0.756 points per play (536 points on 709 plays) and, among all NBA players with at least 475 defended possessions, Bass ranked seventh overall (teammate Avery Bradley topped that list at a minuscule 0.697, but Bass was in the cluster behind him).

Rivers heaped praise on Bass early in the series, suggesting that he played a "perfect" Game 1. With the team in dire need of ballhandling to aid Bradley, the Celtics moved Jason Terry into the starting unit for Game 3 and Bass struggled a bit in a reserve role. Rivers reversed course Sunday and reaped the defensive benefits.

"[Bass] did a great job," Bradley said. "Me, personally, I think we won the game because of Brandon. All credit to Brandon. He played great defense."

What did Bradley think was Bass' secret?

"Just trying to make everything hard on him," he said. "Melo is a great player. That’s all you can do, just try to make everything hard. I feel like Brandon did a great job."

Echoed Kevin Garnett: "Obviously, Melo's going to get a bunch of looks, he's going to get a lot of opportunity at shooting the ball. Guarding a guy who is, if he's not the MVP of the league, is very difficult. He's a handful and I thought BB just did what he could today and I thought he did it consistently."

Read on for more postgame notes, including a Chris Wilcox cameo and Boston's ever-changing guard rotation.

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BOSTON -- Rapid reaction after the Boston Celtics defeated the New York Knicks 97-90 in overtime during Game 4 of an Eastern Conference first-round series at TD Garden. The Knicks lead the series, 3-1:

THE NITTY GRITTY
Jason Terry, shuffled back to a reserve role, came up with a couple of big shots in overtime while scoring 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting to go along with four assists. Paul Pierce scored a team-high 29 points on 9-of-20 shooting with eight rebounds and six assists, while Kevin Garnett added 13 points and 17 rebounds. Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 36 points on 10-of-35 shooting, while Raymond Felton willed the Knicks back from a 20-point hole with 27 points on 10-of-21 shooting.

A DOMINANT FIRST HALF ...
The Celtics held a 12-point lead when Jeff Green picked up his third foul with three minutes to play in the first half (joining Garnett on the bench with his third foul). Boston has had a propensity to stumble at the end of quarters, but actually closed out the first half on a 9-0 run that included a deep 3-pointer by Pierce after Avery Bradley swiped an inbounds pass following a Brandon Bass make. The Celtics owned a seemingly safe 54-35 lead at the intermission.

... BUT ANOTHER DREADFUL SECOND HALF
The Celtics were up 14 with 3 1/2 minutes to play in the third quarter when Felton took over. He scored 12 of New York's final 15 points (all but an Iman Shumpert 3-pointer) and his 26-foot heave in the final second of the frame pulled the Knicks within three. Felton finished 5-of-8 shooting with 16 points in the quarter, outscoring Boston (4-of-16 shooting, 14 points).

OOOOOOVERTIME
The Knicks were down five with little more than four minutes to play, but a Shumpert 3-pointer and an Anthony layup tied things up with 3:34 to go. The Knicks squandered multiple opportunities -- including two missed freebies by Anthony -- but Felton hit an 18-foot pull-up with 78 ticks to go. Garnett responded with a 17-footer off a pass from Pierce to even things again with 67 seconds to play. Pierce missed his elbow jumper on Boston's final gasp.

TURNING POINT
Terry broke the game's final tie with a 3-pointer from the left wing in transition to put Boston out front 91-88 with 92 seconds to play. Anthony responded with a fadeaway baseline jumper, but Terry came back with a little fadeaway of his own for a 93-90 lead with 50 seconds to play. Terry then drew a loose-ball foul with 20.4 seconds to go and made his free throws to seal the victory.

OUT OF BASS
Back in the starting lineup and tasked often with defending Anthony, Bass did an excellent job until foul trouble derailed him in the second half. Picking up his fourth foul early on, he was tentative, especially in the fourth quarter when Anthony blew past him for a loud dunk. Bass fouled out with 4:27 to go. He finished with four points and four rebounds over 30:38.

WHAT IT MEANS
The Celtics -- and their veteran core of Pierce and Garnett -- live for at least one more game. Terry, after a disappointing regular season, stepped up with his team's season on the line. This series takes a two-day break before resuming with Game 5 on Wednesday in New York. The Celtics still have an uphill battle, but they showed some mental toughness by fighting back after the Knicks rallied and refused to go out with a sweep on their home turf.

The Boston Celtics host the New York Knicks in Game 4 of an Eastern Conference first-round series on Sunday at TD Garden (1 p.m., ABC). Here's what to watch for:

* PLAYING FOR PRIDE?: Unless the Celtics are to make league history, their fate is sealed being in an 0-3 hole (no team has ever rallied out of it). The question now is whether they'll go down swinging. Coach Doc Rivers knows his team is a prideful group, but admits it also comes down to playing better than what they've shown thus far in this series. "I think, honestly, this group has a lot of pride. But we have to play better with that pride, at the end of the day," said Rivers. "Pride is great; the Knicks, I’m assuming, have pride. But we have to play better. We don’t have a big margin of error. We knew that going into it, and unfortunately we’ve made errors, and to me, at the end of the day, that’s where I go back to the X and O part. We’ve made a lot of errors... And so as a coach, you just keep pushing them to do it right. And it’s hard. Sometimes their pride is what gets in the way. Every single guy wants to win. They want to win so bad, they become an individual. I thought [Game 3] there was some of that as well."

* SPOTLIGHT: TEAM PLAY, ONE GAME: Rivers said his biggest challenge will be reminding his team that they can't win four games without winning one. He knows he has to prevent his players from trying to individually rescue the season when the only thing that would allow for a comeback is a team effort over four individual games. "If you don’t [focus on team basketball], we're going to lose. That’s pretty simple. Now, whether I’m successful at it is a whole different ball game. It’s really important. That may be the challenge for me tomorrow more than anything, because we do have the Jason Terrys on our team that want to win so bad that they may go into a game like, ‘I’m going to win this game tomorrow!’ Yeah, but it better be ‘we’ are going to win this game. That’s important, but it’s hard. That’s why players are so great, every game is a different game."

* NO EASY POINTS: The Knicks have made a lot of tough shots in this series, but they will be playing without one of their top offensive weapons (and tough-shot makers) in JR Smith (suspended for Game 4 after elbowing Jason Terry in Game 3). Rivers said it's all about making the Knicks work for their points. "There’s certain shots that guys take and make, and as a coach, you say, ‘That’s cool,’" said Rivers. "If they can make that all game, then they get to win the game. That’s how you think as a coach. It’s the shots that you don’t want them taking, when they make those, those are the ones that you don’t like. When you see a guy rolling the ball behind the 3-point line, that’s clearly not a shot we chose for them to have... When JR Smith makes a one-legged, twist-and-turn around from 30 feet and it goes in, you go pat him on the butt and say, ‘That was a great shot. Do it again.’ That’s how you think as a coach. Then that’s why the great players are great, because Carmelo [Anthony] can beat you with those, sometimes. Paul Pierce -- you can name the guys. But there’s only one percent in the league that can do that. And you live with that."

* IS THIS IT?: With the Celtics on the brink of elimination, you can't help but wonder if this will be the last time this veteran core -- Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, in particular -- take the floor together at TD Garden. A very uncertain offseason awaits this summer despite much of the team under contract for next season.

BOSTON -- Rapid reaction after the New York Knicks defeated the Boston Celtics 90-76 during Game 3 of an Eastern Conference first-round series at TD Garden. Knicks lead the series, 3-0.

THE NITTY GRITTY
Go ahead and pick your favorite adjective: Pathetic, unsightly, embarrassing? They all work to describe Boston's effort in this one. A so-called "desperate" Celtics team, its season hanging in the balance, shot 35 percent (14 of 40 overall) while mustering a measly 31 first-half points, barely an upgrade over its 49 points worth of total second-half output in the first two games of the series. Jeff Green scored a team-high 21 points on 8-of-17 shooting with nine rebounds, while Kevin Garnett added 12 points and 17 rebounds. Paul Pierce labored through 6-of-15 shooting with five turnovers (Green had the same number of giveaways) for 17 points over 41 minutes. Not even a new-look starting unit with Jason Terry (14 points) was able to wake Boston from its postseason slumber. Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 26 points on 12-of-25 shooting while Raymond Felton continued to toy with Boston, putting up 15 points and 10 assists. JR Smith added 15 points before getting ejected in the fourth quarter (more on that below).

TURNING POINT
It was a one-possession game early in the second quarter before the Knicks embarked on an 8-0 run highlighted by 3-pointers from Pablo Prigioni and Smith (with a Kenyon Martin layup in between). Later in the frame, with Boston's offense sputtering, the Knicks put together an 11-0 burst that featured three straight buckets from Anthony before a Felton 3-pointer pushed the lead to 18 (47-29) with under a minute to play in the half. Boston was booed as it left the court at the intermission.

SMITH EJECTED FOR FLAGRANT-2
Smith floored Terry with an elbow with 7:06 to play in the fourth quarter and was ejected after the foul was classified a flagrant-2. Celtics coach Doc Rivers prevented a potential confrontation, stepping in front of an enraged Terry and bearhugging him as Smith walked away. With the game out of reach, the refs made the easy decision to maintain the flagrant-2 classification (which comes with automatic ejection). At least Game 4 will have one intriguing storyline.

LITTLE VICTORIES
Some of the only cheers from Celtics fans in the second half came when a trio of Knicks fans were booted from the arena early in the fourth quarter. One New York fan in an Anthony jersey blew kisses to the Boston fans applauding his departure. You can do that when your team is up 20 points and about to put a stranglehold on the series.

WHAT IT MEANS
Unless the Celtics plan on making some history (someone get Kevin Millar on the phone!), this series is over as early as Sunday's Game 4 at the Garden (and probably no later than Tuesday's Game 5 in New York if Boston somehow musters the pride to keep its season going). Friday was just an embarrassing effort for a team that pledged to show signs of desperation after two uninspired second-half efforts in New York. Playing their first game at TD Garden in 16 days and in the aftermath of the marathon bombings, the Celtics rarely showed any fight -- something that's dogged them this entire series when adversity bubbles up. There's at least 48 minutes of basketball left in the season, but it's likely the offseason chatter will start to dominate the conversation after a disappointing, injury-plagued 2012-13 season sits on the brink.