BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – FEBRUARY 23: Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks looks on during the … [+]
The New York Knicks fell to 0-7 against the top three teams in the NBA this season, falling 118-105 to the Boston Celtics on Sunday. They’re now 0-3 against the league’s reigning champions. They’re 0-2 vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers, including a 142-105 drubbing on Friday. They also lost both encounters with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
New York paid a premium to acquire Mikal Bridges, parting with a trade package that included five first-round draft picks. They also signed OG Anunoby to a five-year, $212.5 million contract over the summer. They made those moves primarily with their rivals from Boston in mind.
However, in their season series with the Celtics, out of 144 total minutes played, the Knicks have led for 50 seconds. Bridges is shooting a tick below 44 percent from the field and is 5/16 (31.3 percent) from beyond the arc. In 24 career regular-season games against Boston, Anunoby is yet to score 15 points in a contest, per Dick Lipe of NBC Sports Boston.
Neither player is New York’s main problem against the NBA’s top competition. Jayson Tatum, who finished one assist shy of a triple-double on Sunday, registering 25 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists, torches the Knicks in a way that perfectly captures why their ceiling is lower than the teams they’ve been unable to beat.
The Celtics predicate their offense on relentlessly attacking an opponent’s weakest defenders. Head coach Joe Mazzulla likens it to Orca Whales hunting seals. Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, stellar offensive players having fantastic seasons, are seals at the other end of the floor.
Tatum generated 37 points and ten assists in Boston’s trip to Madison Square Garden earlier this month, putting on a show for Denzel Washington as he sat courtside. The six-time All-Star put 40 points on the board in a 132-109 opening night win against New York after collecting his championship ring and raising Banner 18 to the TD Garden rafters.
Whether torturing Towns in drop coverage or when he dares to meet Tatum at the level as he comes off a screen, New York can only pray for misses. The same applies to exploiting a size advantage against Brunson. There’s a reason this helpless description doesn’t match the profile of any champion in NBA history.
“It’s probably a combination of things,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said of New York’s defensive struggles against the NBA’s top tier. “One, they’re elite, and I think the volume-3-shooting teams, you can do a good job, but it just takes two or three minutes of not getting it right, and they can go on a run on you. So, it’s something that we got to continue to work on, and that’s the test of the league. So, learn from each game [and] get ready for the next one. And that’s where we want to focus.”
His starting center expressed a similar sentiment about applying the lessons learned in the regular season when it matters most. “Every team in the NBA will tell you the same thing,” voiced Towns. “We’re all a work in progress until the postseason when you put all the chips and cards and see what the season taught you.”
The Knicks are having a terrific season. They’re 37-20, third in the Eastern Conference and sixth in the league standings. They share the same record as the Denver Nuggets, who they won both games against this season. However, even a valiant 39-25 third-quarter counterpunch at TD Garden on Sunday couldn’t mask the fact that they don’t match up with the best teams in the Association.
“It’s tough. They have three-level scorers at every single position,” said Josh Hart about the Celtics, the latest top-tier opponent to expose the Knicks’ flaws to an extent most teams can’t.
“They got the length defensively to make us get into tough shots. The eighth-year wing, who has evolved into one of the best role players in the NBA, continued, “They’ve got everything. They’re a heck of a team. They’re a well-coached team. [A] disciplined team. We’ve got to step it up.”
New York, who at times looked like their confidence got shaken as they fell behind by as much as 27, pulled within four in the opening minute of the final frame.
“We just had a level of not really caring anymore,” said Brunson. “It’s like, alright, we’ve gotta go somehow. Don’t care about, like, ‘me’ — we all went there to try and find a way to win. We’ve done it in the past against other teams, but I think it was the first time we did it against this team. So, I think we can do it. We’ve just gotta do it for four quarters.”
But after the Knicks narrowed the gap to 89-85 on a three from Towns, 31 feet from the basket, the Celtics responded with a Mike Tyson-like uppercut. The reigning champs staged a 10-0 run, their lead later ballooning back up to 20.
The visitors only mustered 23 points in the last 12 minutes. Boston held them below 25 in three out of four quarters. They’ve now done so in six of the 12 periods these two teams have faced off.
“Every single night, we try to get two 25-point quarters,” Jayson Tatum told Forbes after the Celtics’ 13-point victory on Sunday. “If we do that, our chances of winning really go through the roof. So, we’re always aware of those things. But limiting them in transition, keeping them off the free-throw line, [and] only giving them one shot. We did that really well in the first half, [in the] third quarter, not so much. But we picked it back up in the fourth and were able to run away with the game.”
Again, New York deserves credit for its comeback bid. However, when Boston picked it back up, they returned to looking helpless. One would be foolish to speak definitively about future events, but it’s evident the Knicks aren’t on the same tier as the Celtics, Thunder, and Cavaliers. That doesn’t bode well for representing the East in the NBA Finals, let alone the prospect of lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
