It’s easy to excuse the Celtics’ 112-106 loss to the Knicks in Madison Square on Thursday night. It’s easy to excuse their 1-3 record against the Knicks this season. It’s even easy enough to excuse the 4-2 loss in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last season. For whatever reason, the Knicks just don’t strike fear into you, but maybe it’s time they should.
Celtics fans don’t want to admit it, but this team is very good. It’s easy to make fun of them for a lot of reasons. They’ve been dysfunctional at times this season, suffered some horrific losses, and seemed on the verge of multiple meltdowns.
But they seem to play to their competition, and for every disastrous loss, there’s an impressive win. When the chips are down, they play their best, and the collection of talent may not seem that imposing, but the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
The Celtics are so good at winning on the margins, finding advantages, and capitalizing on those to tilt the odds in their favor. But against the Knicks, that’s a very difficult thing to do. On paper, New York shouldn’t be as good as Boston, but the team's balance and diversity make for a very tough matchup.
Knicks have wings to defend the Jays
Nobody in the league can really defend the Jays, but the Knicks can at least make them work with their combination of OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart. Sure, Tatum and Brown can work those guys, but in turn, they are going to have to work.Â
That’s about as solid a combination of size, strength, and athleticism as any team has on the wing, and while they can’t shut the Jays down, they can at least slow them down, which makes a huge difference.
Brunson/Kat pick-and-roll is deadly
The Celtics have an elite defense, but they don’t have any scheme option other than drop coverage, which can get abused by Jalen Brunson. He and Karl-Anthony Towns carved up the Celtics, pick-and-rolling them to death with Boston unable to find an answer. Neemias Queta basically got played off the floor, and Nikola Vucevic isn’t a viable option to defend that either.
When they switched Tatum onto Kat, New York found other ways to get the Boston center into the action, be it screening with Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, or even Landry Shamet.Â
Mitchell Robinson is a problem on the glass
The Celtics usually dominate teams on the boards, but Mitchell Robinson remains a huge problem down low. The Celtics don’t have anyone who can keep him off the glass, and his presence, especially as an offensive rebounder, can change the tenor of a game.
New York is scary because it’s not their stars that beat you. Sure, Brunson and KAT are going to make an impact, but it always feels like it’s a guy like Robinson or Hart that’s making all the biggest plays.
Knicks have unconventional edges
Among the basketball reasons, the Knicks are just a very annoying opponent. They play hard all the time, they can play in different ways (the Celtics don’t really have a look that matches their double-big lineup with Mitch and KAT), they are the best fourth-quarter team in the league, they get a great whistle, and they have an elite home-court advantage.
All of these little things work in their favor, and then you add in the two stars in Brunson and Towns, solid role players across the board, a solid veteran coach in Mike Brown, and a certain amount of swagger and confidence.
The Knicks aren’t scared of the Celtics at all. You can tell they believe they are better, and as much as you want to say last year was a fluke, they took it to the Celtics and deservedly knocked them out of the playoffs.Â
If they meet again, the results should be different, and the Celtics should be motivated to make sure they are. But it’s not going to be easy at all, and the Knicks remain the biggest threat to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference playoffs.