The case of the disappearing champs
Boston falls into its own 3-point trap in two come-from-ahead losses to the Knicks.
The NBA World Champion Boston Celtics base their primacy on what coach Joe Mazzulla calls “simple math,” a formula as simple as 2-plus-2. If I shoot 3-pointers and you shoot 2-pointers, I don’t have to be nearly as accurate as you to win.
In the first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the calculator has blown a fuse. The new calculus is 3-plus-3-plus-3-plus equals zero. As is 20-minus-20. On their own unmistakable floor, the Celtics have twice collapsed in the fourth quarter and lost to the New York Knicks, coached by Tom Thibodeau, the defensive mastermind on Doc Rivers’ staff when Boston won the title in 2008. It doesn’t mean the Celtics are dead and the Knicks are favored to win an unstable East. It does mean that we’ve found a team that walks tall into the modern Garden and knows it’s not a Valley of Death, even though its best player is barely 6-foot-2.
In Game 2 Wednesday, the Celtics led 73-53 with 3:12 left in the third quarter. They led 84-68 with 8:40 left in the fourth, thanks to a 3-pointer by Sixth Man of the Year Peyton Pritchard. Then they missed 13 consecutive shots from the floor. In the fourth quarter they were 2 for 11 from deep. When Mikal Bridges capped a 14-point quarter by taking the ball off Tatum’s hands, the Knicks wrapped up a 91-90 win.
In Game 1 Monday, the Celtics led 72-52 with 6:19 left in the third. This time the meltdown was more sudden. The Knicks tied it with 5:55 left in regulation and actually led by six with 3:28 left. Boston forged another tie on Jrue Holiday’s layup, but Bridges’ three-pointer gave New York a 6-point lead in overtime, en route to a 108-105 win.
That was the game in which the Celtics went 4 for 21 in the fourth, 2 for 15 from 3-point. Jayson Tatum was 0-for-5 from long distance in the fourth. The team was 15-for-60 from downtown for the game and Tatum and Jaylen Brown were 5-for-25. As Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe observed, Tatum’s affinity for the long shot mirrors Everyman’s love of golf and bowling. Just because he likes it doesn’t mean he’s good at it. He is 2 for 15 for the series and the Celtics, symmetrically, shot 25 percent from three in each game. For those of us who are math-challenged, Boston is 25 for 100 from three for the series. I’m told that comes out to 25 percent.
It’s difficult to ask a golden retriever to learn sign language, and the Celtics are pretty much committed to being what they are. They’re composed of skilled one-on-one players who move the ball around to get open 3-pointers, and then play consistent defense, with Holliday as the primary stopper. They are at their best when Kristaps Porzingis is playing extensively, but he’s been bothered by a mysterious virus for months now, and he tires easily. Porzingis was at or near his best in last year’s NBA Finals, but when he’s not, the Celtics can’t move the ball inside and out, to get the defense moving and provide space for the shooters….except that’s not what they do anyway, and Porzingis likes to shoot the 3-pointer too. The Celtics put up 48.2 three-pointers per game in the regular season, most in the league, by a 5.8 margin over Golden State. Eight of the 15 busiest 3-point teams in the NBA missed the actual playoffs. The Knicks ranked 27th.
Boston still won 61 regular-season games but had some hideous stretches, particularly at home. It had a 25-3 lead over Cleveland and lost by seven. The 3-pointer became a hole-digging machine that the Celtics couldn’t turn off. Such tendencies keep an opponent in the game, not only on the scoreboard but in the mind.
The Knicks have the defenders to contest Brown, Tatum and Derrick White. More important, they’ve given Boston a fit on the other end. Brunson averaged 26 points and 7.3 assists in the regular season, a fullback-sized, lefty version of Allen Iverson, and he was merciless down the stretch Wednesday. His shots pulled the Knicks within one point, then tied it, and his free throws created the final 1-point lead. The Celtics can’t deal with him, but how must the Mavericks feel? They let him out of the building, as a free agent, after the ‘22 season. Since then Brunson has averaged 24, 28.7 and 26 points for the Knicks.
Brunson wasn’t hailed like Carmelo Anthony or Amar’e Stoudamire or Stephon Marbury or Larry Johnson or any number of Knick saviors. But he has joined his Villanova brethren, Bridges and Josh Hart, with his urgency and instinct. He planted his feet outside the restricted zone and absorbed a charge from Porzingis, who is 7-foot-2, 240, as the Knicks were coming back.
Hart, who touches every aspect of the game, is shooting 58 percent in the series after he had averaged 11.8 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists in the Knicks’ six-game win over Detroit in the first round.
Bridges exceeded his role when he was with Phoenix, but had trouble handling headliner duties in Brooklyn, with meager help. He’s back to being part of the band, and helping the Knicks escape a season-long defensive malaise.
Mostly, the Knicks have a tighter grasp of the possibilities of a 48-minute game. The margins in their past six games are two, one, three, three, three and one. They have won five of those.
This whole playoff season, in both sports, has been a bazaar of the improbable. Aaron Gordon won two road playoff games for the Nuggets at or near the buzzer. The Pacers, unsafe at any speed, used offensive rebounds on free throws to stun Cleveland in Game 2, with three of the top six Cavaliers out. They had already beaten the top seed in the East in Game 1.
The rebranded Warriors, getting the same upgrade from Jimmy Butler that the Lakers hoped to get from Luka Doncic, held off the young usurpers from Houston, then rolled to a Game 1 win in Minnesota even though Steph Curry played only 13 minutes. He won’t even be re-evaluated until next week, but Golden State has weathered worse.
In hockey, Dallas and Winnipeg pulled off two comebacks in third periods that wiped out two-goal deficits in Game 7s. The Jets then eliminated St. Louis in overtime, while Dallas was ousting Colorado on a third-period hat trick by former Avalanche star Mikko Rantanen. Then Rantanen did it again when the Stars beat Winnipeg in Game 1 Wednesday. He has now scored or assisted on 12 consecutive scores by Dallas. Can you win a Conn Smythe Trophy in the second round?
Edmonton overcame a 2-0 deficit and won Game 1 at Vegas, after it had lost the first two games of its first-round series in Los Angeles and won the next two.
In other words, there’s almost more drama than you can digest on a nightly basis, and let’s not forget to appreciate that there are enough networks these days to transmit every second. This is what real binge-watching should be like. More is to come, including the Celtics’ struggle to avoid the cutting-room floor.