NBA

No margin for error with season on brink

Landry Fields will be keeping a daily playoff diary for The Post, as the 22-year-old rookie shooting guard chronicles his first postseason series, the Knicks’ opening-round battle with the Celtics, and more. As told to Mark Hale.

Really, we’ve just got to take it one game at a time. That’s all we can do. The next focus is just [tomorrow].

Paul Pierce got off to a great start in the first quarter, and that kind of got their momentum going. And then they maintained it throughout the whole game. But they did a good job. At halftime, Coach [Mike D’Antoni] said we were right there. We just had to come out in the third quarter with energy and effort and really lock down on D. But Pierce and Ray Allen really got off in the second half.

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It’s tough watching Amar’e [Stoudemire] not at full strength. But he’s a competitor. He has a whatever-it-takes attitude. And it’s a real testament to what kind of player he is. That’s a leadership role and that’s something that he has to do.

I’ve never had a back problem like that happen to me. I’ve heard that any kind of sudden jerks or movement, you can lock up. I’m sure he was feeling it. But we’re proud of him for coming out and even giving it his all.

It’s real frustrating for me personally. I’m trying a lot of different things to go out there, but really, it comes down to what Coach said to the team one time, and now I’m just trying to take it to my personal situation — “When you’re in hell, the only way to get out is put your head down and just fight through.”

The atmosphere was big-time. I’ve never really heard anything like that, even in warm-ups, this whole entire year. Hopefully that same energy is brought tomorrow, and hopefully we can bring better energy.

I think with this team, it’s never-say-die attitude. So we’ll go in to practice today, Tomorrrow’s a must-win, so I think that’s a lot of inspiration right there.