CLEVELAND, Ohio — The 3s fell for Boston and so did the New York Knicks.

The Celtics connected on 20 3-pointers Saturday and ran away with Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with a 115-93 win at Madison Square Garden. Payton Pritchard paced them with 23 points, Jayson Tatum scored 22 — passing Kobe Bryant for the second-most points by a player 27 years old or younger in the playoffs — and Jaylen Brown added 19. Jalen Brunson scored a game-high 27 points for the Knicks.

There was no second-half collapse, wrote Souichi Terada of MassLive, as the Celtics’ lead grew to 31 points. Boston shot 12 of 19 on 3s in the first half and finished 20 of 40. The C’s continued to play their best on the road after a franchise-record 33 victories away from Boston.

MassLive columnist Matt Vautour wondered if the Celtics solved their problems or just simply shot better.

“It was just a matter of time. We’re all professionals. We work really hard on our craft,” Tatum said in Vautour’s column. “We put a lot of time in. You understand there are times when your shot might not be falling, but it always balances out.”

Game 4 is 7:30 p.m. Monday in New York. It will be televised by ESPN. Game 5 will return to Boston on Wednesday.

Here are more storylines and takeaways coming out of that series, opposite the Cavs vs. Pacers in the Eastern Conference:

Celtics showed their poise

With a complete effort, Boston showed its guile and ability to respond in dire circumstances, wrote Boston Globe columnist Gary Washburn.

Mazzulla’s strategic moves

Boston repeatedly put Mitchell Robinson on the free-throw line for New York. The strategy continued into the third quarter with the Celtics up by a considerable margin.

Robinson shot 4 of 12 from the line. He is 7 of 23 in the series.

“Just process over results,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said, as reported by Terada. “You just always stick to the process of what you think gives you the best chance to win on that possession and to win in that game.”

That wasn’t the only thing Mazzulla did.

He hunted mismatch for his talented squad to exploit, namely the defensive deficiencies of Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.

“Among Boston’s 24 first half field goals, 14 of those came in possessions that directly involved targeting Brunson and Towns,” wrote MassLive’s Brian Robb. “Some of the attacks involved obvious choices like Tatum staying committed to taking wide-open pull-up 3s against Towns drops in a pick-and-roll.”

Towns also struggled, offensively, making only 5 of 18 shots. He is suffering from a hand injury.

“At one point in Game 3, Towns appeared to say “I broke it,” while speaking to a teammate,” Robb wrote. “However, both Towns and coach Tom Thibodeau played coy after the game when asked about the injury.”

Pritchard shows his playoff value

The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year showed his worth in Game 3 with a team-high 23 points. Pritchard set a new career high in the playoffs and outscored the Knicks’ bench by himself.

“Just got to maintain my aggressiveness, any chance I get,” Pritchard said in Robb’s report. “Attack the paint, I’ll always be hunting the 3 ball, obviously, but I thought I did a good job of sometimes getting in the paint, making a play.”

Pritchard heeded the call to find his mark, wrote Khari Thompson of the Boston Globe.

Celtics tap into ‘darkness’

The defending champs’ core roster endured heartbreak before last season’s title run, writes Terada for MassLive.

Mazzulla pointed that out after Boston’s Game 3 win in New York, saying, “You’ve got to tap into your darkness.”

“If you plan on doing this for a long time, trust me, it’ll be a lot worse than the last 72 hours,” Mazzulla said in Terada’s report. “And that’s the perspective you have to have. At the end of the day, we have the test in front of us, and I have a group of guys that I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to go through that. This is the fun part. I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”

What could a Boston loss mean this offseason

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst writes a series loss for Boston could have significant ramifications on this offseason. According to Windhorst, the Celtics’ continued viability will be in question.

⦁ The team is being sold to a group led by investor Bill Chisholm for more than $6 billion.

⦁ Al Horford is in the final season of his contract and could retire, but Boston is facing payroll and luxury taxes of $464 million.

“If the Celtics don’t make it out of this second-round meeting with the Knicks — and fail to defend their title just as the past five NBA champions have done so — the degree of fallout is uncertain,” Windhorst writes. “Expensive consultants aren’t needed to advise against spending $500 million on a roster that didn’t return to the conference finals.”

The Boston Celtics finally spilled the three and now they have a series with the New York Knicks.

New York’s long-awaited return home became a metropolitan nightmare on Saturday afternoon, as the Celtics earned a 115-93 victory in Game 3 of the two sides’ Eastern Conference semifinal set at Madison Square Garden.

Payton Pritchard scored 23 points in relief to lead the green men while Jayson Tatum had 22. Jalen Brunson led all scorers with 27 in defeat while Karl-Anthony Towns had a 21-point, 15-rebound double-double despite dealing with apparent hand issues throughout the game.

The Knicks now lead the best-of-seven set 2-1 but Boston no doubt built some momentum thanks to the rediscovery of their deep ball. Their historic outside shooting rates made all the wrong headlines after the first two games in Boston (25-of-100) but they shot an even 50 percent (20-of-40), which proved to be the perfect antidote for a Manhattan crowd taking in the most monumental Knicks game in quite some time.

Six different Bostonians hit at least two triples (with Pritchard and Tatum getting five each) while the Knicks as whole sank only five, three alone coming from the arms of Brunson.

Boston led nearly from the get-go, its dominance interrupted only by a 2-2 tie in the early minutes. The lead never went back to a single digit after the Celtics went up by 16 after the first period (which saw them hit six of their first seven tries with an extra point on the line) and the advantage never dipped under 20 following an Al Horford triple with just over two minutes remaining.

Boston ensured there would be no comeback this time around by boosting its lead to as much as 31 before all was said and done. Even with the game well out of reach, the Celtics continued to engage in the intentional fouling of Mitchell Robinson, who hit 4-of-12 subsequent attempts. Knicks fans gathered were at least supportive of Robinson’s cause, as his successful sinks at the strip drew the loudest cheers of the night.

Despite basking in the aura of MSG in springtime, the Knicks have lost three of the four games staged between Seventh and Eighth Avenue this postseason. Road teams remain undefeated in both Eastern semifinal sets, as the Cleveland Cavaliers kept that trolling in Friday’s win in Indianapolis.

The Knicks will look to get back on the right track when Game 4 is staged at MSG on Monday night (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Make sure you bookmark Knicks on SI for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns as and so much more!

On Saturday afternoon, the Boston Celtics will play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of their second-round playoff series.

For the game, the Celtics could remain without one of their best role players, as Sam Hauser is on the injury report.

He also missed Game 2, so this would be his second straight out of action (if he doesn’t play).

Via The Boston Celtics: “Injury Report for tomorrow at New York:

Sam Hauser (right ankle sprain) – DOUBTFUL”

Hauser is in his fourth NBA season (all with the Celtics).

He finished the regular season with averages of 8.5 points and 3.2 rebounds per contest while shooting 45.1% from the field and 41.6% from the three-point range in 71 games.

Via StatMuse (on April 21): “Fun Fact: Sam Hauser is the all-time leader in regular season win percentage (min. 200 GP) and the all-time leader in playoff win percentage (min 40 GP).”

The Celtics lost each of the first two games in the series (at home).

They are now in a must-win situation on Saturday.

Via Jonathan Marci of Knicks Film School: “Yes, the Celtics will shoot better. BUT the Knicks just won a game where they:

– shot 29% from 3
– gave up 16 OREB’s
– committed 16 TO’s
– got a 12-for-37 shooting line from their 2 highest volume shooters

New York has another level to reach as well.”

Game 4 of the series will be on Monday night (also at Madison Square Garden in New York City).