Luke Kornet

18 championship banners has left the Boston Celtics quite used to the experience of watching unsung heroes turn must-win playoff encounters into legacy-defining moments. Assuming he hadn’t already, Luke Kornet decided that during May 14, 2025’s win-or-go-home affair, the time had arrived for one of his own. Historic, quite literally, in his contribution in Game Five against the New York Knicks, “The Green Kornet” prepares a memorable finishing touch, blending into a Spain pick-and-roll as discreetly as one could at 7-foot-2. As if inspired by a goal of bringing TD Garden to its collective feet for the umpteenth time, the now-free Kornet glides skyward, turning his teammate’s picture-perfect lob pass into a reverse alley-oop to all but confirm victory. Smoothly-timed cuts through the lane went rewarded — appropriately — with a trim of the series deficit, as Kornet used a first-of-its-kind 10-point (on 100 percent shooting), nine-rebound, seven-block demonstration to force a Game Six in the Big Apple.