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The Celtics appear ready to do it again and take out the Knicks

Posted on by Kennedy
The Celtics appear ready to do it again and take out the Knicks

Celtics

Boston set an NBA record for most 3-pointers made and dominated defense from the jump against the shell-shocked Knicks.

The Celtics appear ready to do it again and take out the Knicks

Al Horford grabs a rebound against the Knicks on opening night. Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe

The Celtics were by far the best team in the NBA last season and opened their 2024-25 season with a 132-109 victory over the Knicks.

Here are the snack bars.

1. There's a lot of talk about the Celtics' 3-point shooting and their balanced roster, but we perhaps don't talk enough about how mentally strong they've been over the past two seasons.

One of the more understandable losses a team can suffer is ring night after winning a championship. Before the game starts, emotions run high and the team celebrates the highlight of last year's work one last time before rushing into the new season. They get rings. They raise a banner. They give speeches to thunderous applause.

Then the lights come back on, the smoke clears, the banner box is rolled away, the layup lines resume, and soon there is a basketball game against a good opponent who has just spent the last 45 minutes watching like a rival is crowned. Ring Night is not a lost date, but it is a tough game.

On Tuesday, the Celtics immediately slapped the Knicks in the face. They had Jrue Holiday, guard Karl-Anthony Towns. They treated Jalen Brunson the same way they treated Trae Young (and Tyrese Haliburton and Tyler Herro and Luka Doncic and tons of other scoring guards who can't defend any of the Celtics' starters 1-on-1). They created so many open 3-point shots that the bench had a chance to make 3-point history when their starters left the game in the fourth quarter (more on that in a moment).

Their defense was particularly nasty – notice how Jrue Holiday floats from play to play here, preventing the Knicks from targeting Luke Kornet in the pick-and-roll.

“The biggest thing I’m proud of is the mindset of the guys,” Mazzulla said. “We are not stuck in the past. We were able to move from what got us where we were to what we want to achieve with the intangibles.”

The Celtics are a championship-caliber team in terms of talent, and the ring ceremony was a nice reminder of that quality. But they also have a championship mentality that will serve them well in the second half of the season.

As Tatum put it after receiving his first championship ring, “Let’s do it again.”

2. Speaking of Tatum, he opened his season with one of the better regular season performances of his career – 37 points on 14-for-18 shooting and 10 assists.

The punch in his shot has completely disappeared. In his place comes a beautiful jumper, which he lets fly with ease both when catching and dribbling. When the Knicks went under screens, he burned them in the pick-and-roll. When they were caught running over, he also burned them in the pick-and-roll.

Perhaps the game's wildest play came in the second half when the Celtics swung the ball to a wide-open Tatum, who made the stunning decision not to shoot. Tatum waited for Jericho Sims to finish, then dribbled his way into an iso-triple instead. He canned it.

Tatum won't go 8-for-11 from three the rest of the way. But he looks comfortable and confident, both as a newly crowned champion and as the proud owner of a new jump shot.

“Tatum is going to be a problem,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He is a great player. You have to protect him with your team.”

Of course, protecting him with your team is also why Tatum ends up with 10 assists.

He may not be the favorite, but you shouldn't discount his MVP chances just yet.

3. As Mazzulla walked out to receive his championship ring, he bent down and kissed the hardwood floor.

How did it taste?

“Blood? Maybe I wish it were like that,” Mazzulla said.

And what did he think of the ring?

“I don’t know,” he said somewhat dismissively. “This thing is too big. I don't know…why is it so big? I will never wear it. But it’s cool to have.”

However, he valued the banner very much.

“They represent so much,” he said. “The banner was the highlight for me because it represents a lot of things that are in it, and the rafters in this building have a life of their own. So that moment was the coolest.”

4. Mazzulla may think the rings are a bit big, but they sure look pretty good.

“This ring is just an object, right?” said Jaylen Brown. “But it's all of it, the emotions, the heartache, the embarrassment, the work, the drive, the dedication, like that's what this ring represents, you know what I mean?”

5. The Knicks have plenty of time to find themselves, but for a team seemingly trying to emulate what the Celtics have, they have one glaring weakness: Not one, but two defensive targets in their starting lineup with Brunson and Städte. The Celtics have no defensive holes in their starting lineup, which is quietly one of the main reasons they are so strong.

6. The Celtics made 17 three-pointers in the first half and tied the NBA record for most three-pointers in a game with 8:54 remaining. Garbage time was approaching, which meant plenty of minutes for Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser. The record seemed all but secured.

Then the Celtics went ice cold. Brown missed twice. Xavier Tillman missed. Pritchard and Hauser missed three combined 3-pointers in one possession. The crowd was begging the team to break the record (and the players were clearly aware that they were on the brink of history), but Pritchard very respectfully dribbled out of the shot clock in the final minute without making another attempt, and the The Celtics had to settle for a record-breaking 29 three-point shots (and 12 consecutive misses in the final eight minutes). In the end, the Celtics attempted 61 three-pointers and shot 47.5 percent from deep (29 of 49 for 59 percent if you exclude the final 12 shots).

Brown summed it up succinctly: “When the crowd came in and we started chasing them, we couldn't even hit the broad side of the barn. Everything was over. We got a lot of great looks and it was like a lid on the basket. So that shows that we are not a team that goes for threes. We play the game and do what we're supposed to do, but I think towards the end it was difficult because we weren't playing like we normally did.”

7. The Celtics as a team finished the game with ten times more assists (33) and twice as many steals (six) than turnovers (3).

8. Al Horford started and played 30 minutes, while Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman split 15 and 17 minutes, respectively. There was a lot of talk in preseason about Kornet's potential in the starting XI, but that seemed to quickly fizzle out.

Horford finished the game with 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting (3-for-5 from three).

9. Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were all in the building and Bob Cousy also showed up.

“I didn’t see Bob Cousy play, but I remember the Celtics won a championship in 2008,” Tatum said. “I was about 10 years old. I saw Ray and Paul and KG, I grew up watching those guys and it was like a full circle moment for them when they came back and shared that moment with us and kind of passed the torch or whatever that symbolized.

“I’m still a fan of these guys. They are part of my childhood. That was an incredible moment when I was with them, KG was screaming in my ear and I thought, “I'm really talking to Kevin Garnett right now.” I never take those moments for granted. I still think it’s cool to be a part of things like that.”

10. Next up for the champs: The Celtics travel to Washington to play the Wizards on Thursday before traveling to Detroit to face the Pistons on Saturday.

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