Boston and New York meet again at TD Garden on Friday night, and both teams walk in looking to put an ugly result behind them. The Celtics dropped their game against the Detroit Pistons, while the Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers on their ring night. Now the rivalry stage is set, and Boston will have its hands full.
The biggest issue for the Celtics is simple: New York has already shown it knows how to bother them. Last season, the Knicks won three of the four matchups and did it with a relentless edge from deep.
New York hit 40.9% of its 3s across those games on 39.8 attempts a night, while Boston managed just 30.4% from long range on 42.0 attempts. That gap told the story.
Mikal Bridges was a major problem in those meetings, shooting 61.9% on 5.3 3-point attempts per game against Boston. And he wasn’t the only one stretching the Celtics thin.
Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are both central to what New York does, with Towns especially punishing Boston as a pick-and-roll big man. He scored 1.37 points per possession in that role, the third-best mark in the NBA among players with at least 100 possessions.
Not much changed in New York this summer. The main shift was the loss of Mitchell Robinson, who signed with the Celtics in free agency. The Knicks filled that spot with Andre Drummond, who played well in their season opener, and otherwise kept the core that powered last year’s title run intact.
That continuity is part of what makes New York such a difficult assignment. Baylor Scheierman said the Knicks are loaded on the offensive end and can hurt a defense in plenty of ways.
"Super talented team," Baylor Scheierman said at shootaround on Friday morning. "Have a lot of guys on the floor that can beat you.
I think it comes down to the discipline of guarding for 24 seconds. They like to push it, and then if it's not there, [they] really work the clock.
So, I think it comes down to our discipline of staying consistent throughout the possession and then finishing possessions with rebounds."
That last piece matters more than it might sound. New York was the best team in the league last season from 0-4 seconds on the shot clock, hitting 41.3%.
Against Boston, that number ballooned to 58.6%. The Celtics never quite finished the possession.
Josh Hart went 6-of-9, Brunson went 4-of-6, and Towns went 2-of-3 in those late-clock situations.
The Knicks were dangerous even a few ticks earlier, too. With 4-7 seconds left on the shot clock, they shot 43.6% against Boston, a mark that ranked third in the league. When defenses thought they had them bottled up, New York still found a way to create.
That’s especially true with Brunson and Towns working together. Scheierman said the key is staying locked in and not getting pulled out of position by the movement and shot fakes.
"Well, I mean, one, they're tough shot makers, and then two, they play well off of each other," Scheierman said. "And you have to be disciplined because they're looking for any sort of angle they can get on you, especially playing downhill, playing off two feet, shot fake, stuff like that. So, it's just a lot of discipline."
Even when Boston got a body on a shot, New York still made life miserable. Against the Celtics last season, the Knicks shot 50.0% from the field and 40.6% from 3 on tightly contested attempts, defined by the NBA as shots with a defender within two to four feet. That’s a brutal number, and it stands out even more because no team in the league shot 37% or better from deep under those same conditions last season.
Brunson and Towns also made Boston pay at the free-throw line. Brunson averaged 4.8 free throw attempts per game against the Celtics, while Towns got there six times a night.
For Boston, the path forward starts with pace. Scheierman pointed to that as a way to create cleaner offense against a long, active Knicks defense.
"I think it's just about pace and creating advantages," Scheierman said. "I think, like you said, they have great defenders who are long and active.
But if you play with pace, you can get them off the body, create separation. That creates reads, rim reads, two-on-one reads, and allows [for] good, easy offense and open shots."
That doesn’t mean just running every chance it gets. Scheierman made that clear, too.
"Both. I think on makes and misses, being able to push it up the court, and if nothing's there, being able to play with pace in the half-court is just as important as full-court," Scheierman said.
Turnovers would help Boston get there. Brunson only turned it over 2.0 times per game against the Celtics last season and averaged 8.5 assists, so prying possessions loose won’t be easy. But the more Boston can force the issue, the more it can get out and attack before New York gets set.
There’s also the risk that comes with pressing too hard on Brunson. Boston wants to make life difficult for him, but that can open the door elsewhere if the rotations aren’t sharp.
One example from the matchup breakdown showed Scheierman helping on a Brunson drive while leaving Bridges, Jaylen Brown getting caught on an off-ball screen, and the recovery falling apart. Bridges ended up with an open three.
If the Celtics are going to gamble and help aggressively, the defense has to stay tighter than it did in that sequence. After a shaky defensive showing against Detroit, that connectedness will be a major test again Friday night.
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