The New York Knicks thrashed the Boston Celtics 119-81 to send the defending champions crashing out of the NBA playoffs on Friday.New York will head into that best-of-seven series brimming with confidence after an electrifying performance that swept aside a Boston team who had dominated the Knicks in a game five win on Wednesday.

With the loss, the Celtics continued a long NBA playoff streak. For the seventh year in a row, the league will not have a repeat champion. This also marks another year that the defending champions will not have gotten out of the second round. The last time that it happened with in 2019.

The Celtics didn't care about the cost of retaining their championship core after their dominant 2024 NBA Finals triumph last season. They hoped to break a long drought of NBA champions failing to defend their title. The last team to successfully do so was the 2018 Golden State Warriors, following up their 2017 triumph with another title.