NO MIRACLE REQUIRED: RIOTS BEAT KNICKS 69-60, TIE SERIES 2-2

Game 3 needed a miracle. Game 4 did not.

One night after Josh Hart buried the shot that saved Newark’s season, the Riots came back home and played the kind of game that makes a playoff series feel completely different. Newark beat the New York Knicks 69-60, tied the first-round matchup at 2-2 and, for the first time in the series, did not need the final possession to decide anything.

The Riots led after every quarter. They were up 17-14 after one, 37-29 at halftime and 49-40 through three. New York never found the same control it had during the first two games, and Newark never handed it back.

The formula was not complicated: pressure the ball, attack the paint, win the possession battle and make the Knicks work for everything.

Newark finished with a 13-6 advantage in steals and turned New York’s 15 turnovers into 24 points. The Knicks managed only 12 points off Newark mistakes. The Riots also won the paint 54-34 and the fast-break battle 20-8. For a team that had spent much of the season searching for a stable offensive identity, this was about as clean a description of Newark basketball as the Riots could ask for.

The funniest part was how little the three-point line mattered. Newark made only two threes all night. It did not matter because the Riots kept getting downhill, getting stops and living where the higher-percentage shots were.

Jaylen Brown earned Player of the Game with 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting, two made threes and zero turnovers. Dwight Howard matched him with 14 points, five rebounds and three steals while earning the defensive game ball. Howard also grabbed three offensive rebounds and went 4-for-4 at the line.

Cam Johnson gave Newark another efficient layer with 10 points, two steals and a game-best plus-15. Josh Hart followed his Game 3 heroics with nine points and four rebounds, while Michael Ray Richardson supplied six assists and two steals. Jalen Johnson did not score, but his eight rebounds were the quiet work that helped Newark keep control of the glass and the pace.

New York still had production at the top. Nikola Jokic led the Knicks with 16 points and seven rebounds. Carmelo Anthony scored 14 and made four threes. But the Knicks could not turn those individual lines into control of the game. Anthony needed 13 shots, and New York’s supporting offense kept running into Newark’s pressure.

The Knicks shot 42.4 percent from the field and 27.3 percent from three. Newark was not much better from deep — only 18.2 percent — but the Riots did not need to be. They made 29 field goals, hit 9 of 10 free throws and won the categories that decided the game.

That is what changed between the first two games and the next two.

New York won Game 1 and Game 2 by two points each while Newark kept finding ways to waste chances. Game 3 was the emotional escape. Game 4 was the proof that the escape might have changed the series.

At 2-2, the quarterfinal was no longer about whether Newark could avoid another familiar collapse. The question had flipped.

Could the top-seeded Knicks stop the Riots before the momentum became something bigger?