Josh Hart gushes blood from face after elbow by Luke Kornet

Wednesday’s playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks suddenly turned into a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

During the first quarter of the contest at TD Garden in Boston, Mass., which was Game 5 of the second-round playoff series between the two teams, Knicks guard Josh Hart took a brutal hit to the face from Celtics big Luke Kornet. Hart was attempting to score off a pass in transition and received an inadvertent elbow from Kornet, who was trying to contest the shot.

Immediately, Hart began gushing blood. The upper part of his face was almost completely covered in blood, and his jersey and shorts got badly stained up as well. Here is the video (but obviously beware of the graphic content).

Josh Hart takes an elbow to the face

Hart changed clothes and stayed in game pic.twitter.com/tKdPLY6VzQ

— House of Highlights (@HoHighlights) May 14, 2025

Remarkably, Hart remained in the game (after taking some time to change out of his bloodied uniform) and hit both of his ensuing free throws to boot. Kornet, meanwhile, was given a personal foul on the play but not a flagrant.

Wednesday’s Game 5 ended up being a pretty painful affair for Hart. Later on during the second half, he was grabbed in the nuts by Celtics star Jaylen Brown, resulting in double technical fouls (video here).

The WWE-like blood fountain from Hart was also reminiscent of what occurred during the Celtics’ first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic. In Game 2 of that series, it was Boston big man Porzingis who spurted blood after taking an elbow from Orlando’s Goga Bitadze.