Knicks take 3-0 series lead

The NBA story here is pretty simple — the Knicks walked into Philadelphia, survived an ugly, physical playoff game, and left one win from ending the series. New York beat the 76ers 97-92 in Game 4 on April 28, 2024, and pushed the matchup to 3-1. That matters because 3-1 is the kind of playoff edge that usually ends things. But the interesting part is how the Knicks did it. This was not a shooting clinic. It was a possession war. ### Why was this game such a big swing? Because the series could have snapped back to 2-2. Philadelphia had just won Game 3, Joel Embiid looked dangerous even while banged up, and the Wells Fargo Center finally had life. Instead, the Knicks took back control on the road. A tied series feels open. A 3-1 series feels like a countdown. ### Who actually won it? Brunson did the headline work. He scored a playoff-career-high 47 points and added 10 assists, which is absurd volume in a game where neither team reached 100. When the Knicks needed a clean look late, the ball kept finding him. And when Philadelphia loaded up on him, he still bent the defense enough to create something useful. ESPN’s recap and box score both center the game on that scoring burst. ### So why wasn’t it just a Brunson game? Because the Knicks’ real edge was the mess. New York kept creating extra chances after misses, and that has been the defining pressure point in this matchup. Josh Hart grabbed 17 rebounds, and the Knicks turned their work on the glass into 21 second-chance points. That is the same formula that kept showing up in the series — make Philadelphia defend one possession, then make them defend it again. (espn.com) ### Why did offensive rebounds matter so much? Because both offenses bogged down. This was a 97-92 playoff grinder, not a track meet. In games like that, one extra rebound can feel like a turnover forced in football — it changes the whole math. If you miss but keep the ball, the bad shot does not fully punish you. The Knicks have built a lot of their identity around that kind of chaos, and Philadelphia kept paying for it. ### What about Embiid? (nba.com) Embiid still put up 27 points and 10 rebounds, so this was not a no-show. But the game kept asking him to do everything at once — score, protect the rim, clean the glass, and survive the Knicks’ constant physicality. That is the catch with New York. The Knicks do not just defend stars. They exhaust them. By late game, every extra box-out and every scramble possession starts to matter more. ### Did anyone else tilt it? OG Anunoby and Miles McBride helped stabilize the Knicks around Brunson, and New York’s defense held Philadelphia to 16 points in the fourth quarter. That last number is huge. The Knicks did not need a perfect closing offense because their defense kept shrinking the game. Once it got tight late, the Sixers ran out of clean answers. ### How serious is a 3-1 lead? (espn.com) Very. Not mathematically over, but close to the hard part of over. A team down 3-1 has to win three straight against an opponent that has already proven it can win in multiple ways — at home, on the road, in a shootout, or in a rock fight. New York had already shown enough range in this series to make that climb look brutal. ### Bottom line The Knicks did not grab control with finesse. They grabbed it with Brunson’s shot-making and with all the ugly little things that break a playoff game open — rebounds, loose balls, second chances, fourth-quarter stops. (espn.com) Up 3-1, they were no longer just hanging with Philadelphia. They were dictating the series.