NBA ROUNDUP Thursday's other playoff game

Nets 81, Knicks 78
NEW YORK -- The Knicks managed to keep it competitive. The Nets were still the better team. Kenyon Martin ended a late offensive drought with a key three-point play in the final 30 seconds, and the New Jersey Nets outlasted a feisty effort from the Knicks to defeat New York for a 3-0 lead in their first-round series. After two days in which Tim Thomas and Martin took trash talk to new levels, the teams kept things clean and had the fans on their feet for the final several minutes of the first playoff game at Madison Square Garden in three years. New Jersey scored just six points over the final 4 1/2 minutes, but it was still enough as New York couldn't come all the way back after trailing by as many as 14. Game 4 will be Sunday, with the Knicks facing a task no NBA team has ever accomplished -- coming back from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series. Martin led New Jersey with 19 points and 15 rebounds, Jason Kidd had 19 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and Richard Jefferson had 17 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds. Stephon Marbury scored 10 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter but shot just 7-for-23 for New York.
-- Associated Press
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