In our latest installment of confirmation bias, the Boston Celtics season-opener is sounding more and more like it’ll be against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Many fans and media members speculated that this would be the case when New York captured its first NBA Championship in 53 years last month, but it’s all been just that -- speculation.
The first real piece of evidence towards a Celtics vs. Knicks matchup to tip off the NBA season came on Monday morning. Former New York Giants running back and now WFAN radio host Tiki Barber may have leaked some not-so-public information about the NBA’s plans for banner night in New York.
Did Tiki accidentally spill the beans on the Knicks' opening night opponent?😂 pic.twitter.com/l6izhHWE48
— WFAN Sports Radio (@WFAN660) July 27, 2026
“I feel like I heard that,” he tried to recall during Monday’s Evan and Tiki show on WFAN. “I don’t know where I heard that from. Maybe I heard it from Marc [Leder], I don’t know.”
Barber initially sounded like he, too, was speculating. But then he let on that he may have actually heard the intel from a notable source, Knicks minority owner Marc Leder.
“I just heard this over the weekend,” he continued. “When I was with Marc Leder, who is one of the minority owners, and I feel like maybe he told us and he shouldn’t have. But, we’ll find out.”
Frankly, if this is the case, it’s an unfortunate outcome -- for me at least.
I can’t think of a worse way to start the 2026-27 season than having to watch a franchise and fanbase that I despise raise a banner right in my team’s face. Seeing Spike Lee, Timothee Chalamet, Ben Stiller, and the rest of the celebrity fans looking on with the other 20,000 people that spent three months salary to be there that night will be sickening.
Things have changed a lot since the Knicks watch the Celtics raise their banner
It’ll also be a painful reminder of how much things have changed in two years. Back in 2024, the roles were reversed. The Knicks came up to TD Garden, watched the Celtics raise their record 18th NBA Championship banner, and then proceeded to get stomped into the parquet.
At the time, the Celtics felt primed to make a run at becoming the league’s first repeat champion in six years. They’d brought their entire team back and secured stars on long-term contracts.
Then everything got worse.
Kristaps Porzingis got sick, they blew two massive fourth-quarter leads to the Knicks in the playoffs, Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles tendon, they had to dump Porzingis and Jrue Holiday’s contracts to avoid the second apron, Tatum came back after Boston put together an impressive three quarters of the season, then they blew a 3-1 first-round series lead to lose to the Philadelphia 76ers for the first time in 44 years, and then the Celtics traded Jaylen Brown to the 76ers seemingly out of nowhere.
It was a lot more fun in 2024. Now we live in bizarro world.
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