Turnovers

[CelticConcourse]

I was talking about it early in the second when we had 6. Apparently we ended with 21.

You can't do that against the Knicks, who had the least turnovers of any team in the league. You gotta take care of the ball.

Pierce.

[Who]

The Knicks were in the best in the league in terms of turnover differential.

Like the OP said, the Knicks protected the ball better than anyone else in the league (had fewest turnovers, best TOV%, only team with less than a 1000 TOs on season, one of only two teams with under 1100) + they were very strong at creating turnovers (4th in TOV%, 10th in total turnovers forced). Their turnover differential was far and away the best in the NBA.

They do a great job of creating extra possessions with turnovers.

[Who]

The Knicks small lineup does a great job of limiting turnovers.

Their lineups regularly play two PG backcourts (Felton, Kidd, Prigioni) and then stick two perimeter orientated forwards with good guard skills alongside them (Melo, JR Smith, Shumpert, Novak, Copeland) while playing only one big man (Tyson, Kenyon, Amare).

It really improves their capacity to take care of the ball. More ball-handlers. More passers. Better decision makers. Better spacing. Harder for opponents to send help defense. Better decision making.

They do a great job of protecting the basketball. Really impressive what they have done there.

[CelticConcourse]

Thing is, they can keep the ball and still lose.
We can't turn over the ball and still win.

To be honest, I don't care how much they turn the ball over. I care about how we make live-ball turnovers that lead to easy buckets, which are huge during low-scoring games. We can't do that. If we make 5 less, we're probably saving 5 points and 5 points is a lot in a 85-78 game.