BOSTON — The Celtics and New York Knicks took the court for the opening game of the NBA season Tuesday night, a clash that Jalen Brunson said Tuesday morning was a fair barometer — despite being the first game — for where the new-look Knicks stand against the defending champions.
But instead of a tense, dramatic affair, the only drama on this night at TD Garden, where the Celtics raised their record-setting 18th NBA championship banner to the rafters, was watching Boston spend the final 8:54 of the 132-109 win over New York trying — and, ultimately, failing — to break the NBA record for 3-pointers made in a game.
After Al Horford had Boston’s third straight make to start the fourth quarter with 8:54 remaining — pushing Boston into a tie with the Milwaukee Bucks for the NBA record with 29 makes in a game — the Celtics went on to miss 13 consecutive attempts to break it, including three airballs and several other ugly misses, in what turned out to be the only thing that didn’t go Boston’s way on this season-opening night.
“It was almost like we got jinxed or something,” Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said. “It was like when we were just playing, having fun, playing our style of basketball, everything was going in. And then once the crowd got into it and we started hunting them, we couldn’t even hit the broad side of the barn. Everything was off. We got a bunch of great looks, and it was like a lid on the basket.
“So that just shows, like, we’re not a team that’s hunting 3s. We play the game and we do what we’re supposed to do, but I think towards the end it was tough because we wasn’t playing the way we had normally played. But we still had a bunch of great looks.”
Before Boston’s cold streak to end the game, the Celtics had gone 29-for-48 from behind the arc — part of a team-wide offensive display that saw the Celtics finish the game with 33 assists compared to just three turnovers, and individually was led by Jayson Tatum, fresh off tweaking his jumper this summer, finishing with 37 points on 14-for-18 shooting, including 8-for-11 from 3-point range.
But for as hot as the Celtics were for most of the game, that’s how cold they became down the stretch. Despite the crowd chanting “One more 3” on several occasions, it wasn’t enough for Boston to get over the line as the Celtics spoiled the Knicks debuts of big-name offseason acquisitions Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns.
“I asked around, like, 26 what [the record] was,” Celtics guard Derrick White said, “and then someone told me. And then when we were tied, I was like, ‘Oh, we’re one away from the record.’
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s kind of like a no-hitter, huh. I blame myself for that one.”
On the other side of things, the Knicks were blaming themselves — and, specifically, their defense — for allowing this game to get away from them as quickly and thoroughly as it did. From coach Tom Thibodeau to Towns to Brunson, every part of New York’s franchise made it clear that it’s going to take a far better effort at that end of the court to compete with Boston for Eastern Conference supremacy.
“We can talk about offense all y’all want,” said Towns, who had 12 points and 7 rebounds in 23 minutes in his Knicks debut. “I’ll leave that to y’all when y’all go home and write the stories. But I know for us we gotta play defense.”
Boston also seemed to repeatedly catch New York off-guard with quick looks in transition — another thing everyone pointed to as a problem in this game. And, according to Second Spectrum, the Celtics made 15 3-pointers on halfcourt sets that came within the first 12 seconds, tied for their most in a game since player tracking began in 2013-14.
“We were in rotation,” said Brunson, who led the Knicks with 22 points in 24 minutes. “It started with Jayson knocking down a lot of shots off the pick-and-roll and then us adjusting and him making the right play, getting us in rotation.
“So gotta give the credit to them. They’re a good team. What they do is unique, and we were just on our heels all night.”
What everyone on both sides agreed on, however, was that this was just one game of 82 for both teams. And while Boston fulfilled its stated mandate to try to approach this season as if it was a team challenging for the title, rather than one coming off claiming its 18th NBA championship, New York now sees just how much work it has to do in order to reach the levels it hopes to this season.
“It’s Game 1,” Thibodeau said. “We didn’t have that much time yet. But it’s early, and you gotta learn from it. So our thing is get better from this and watch film and I think it was a great test for a team like this, who are already up there.
“It’s a good test, and we’ll learn from that and try to build on what we got to do with our habits and everything.”
