When the Boston Celtics walked out of Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, the loss stung. The New York Knicks rode the coattails of red-hot Josh Hart down the stretch, and it was enough to earn them a 112-106 victory.
But why? It was a late-April regular-season game. The third-to-last regular-season game for the Celtics. And a win in either of their last two (against the New Orleans Pelicans and Orlando Magic) will still earn them the No. 2 seed in the East.
So, why did Thursday night’s game feel like it meant more?
Because, in a way, it did.
Boston and New York don’t like each other. That’s never going to change. In the world of sports, the two cities have enough bad blood to fill prime-time TV slots for months on end.
No, that’s not it. All of that is true. Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees. Celtics vs. Knicks. New England Patriots vs. New York Giants (sorry, Jets fans, maybe in another lifetime). It all means something.
But Thursday night felt clairvoyant. At least, going into the night, it did.
The Celtics and Knicks seem to be on a second-round collision course for the second straight year. And with New York’s win on Thursday, that pathway just got all the more clear. That’s why there was so much juice at MSG on Thursday night.
Everyone in the building understood the moment. They understood the implications. The momentum. The confidence-building opportunity. The chance to get a sneak peek at a matchup that will inevitably require hours, and hours, and hours of scouting.
Thursday night was a teaser. And the Knicks walked away on cloud nine.
Both teams made their runs.
OG Anunoby started off hot for the Knicks, and then Payton Pritchard responded. Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brunson led their respective offenses well, though Brunson owned the efficiency advantage.
Then, as the game wound down, it was a role-player duel.
Hart vs. Baylor Scheierman.
Both players traded buckets, feeding off the space their star teammates created. Hart snuck his way under the hoop. Scheierman slunk across the 3-point line. Both had an innate sense for the moment.
But Hart won out. Two dagger threes with under a minute to go were enough to sink Boston’s hopes of victory. The Celtics contested the shots well, but it didn’t matter. Big-time players make big-time plays, and Hart was the biggest of all on Thursday.
The Celtics’ defense is centered around playing help defense in the paint. Nobody allows fewer paint points than Boston. But a side effect of that is closing out late on 3-point shooters and, in some cases, strategically giving players more space to shoot.
Historically, Hart has been one of those players. So, when the Celtics played that same game on Thursday, Hart made them pay. He drained five of his seven 3-point attempts, scoring 26 points — the second-most he’s scored in a game all season.
And the nail in the coffin? Hart shot 0-of-2 on threes in the first half. Five-of-five in the second half.
Boston’s plan to leave Hart open has worked in the past. But his 3-point efficiency is up to 40.6 percent on 3.7 attempts this season — the highest mark of his career. And when you leave a guy open enough, sometimes, a rhythm develops.
That’s exactly what gave Hart the confidence and the ability to nail two straight contested threes at the end of Thursday night’s fourth quarter.
But too much focus will be thrust onto Hart. The Celtics only scored 106 points. They shot 5-of-21 from 3-point range. That’s just not good enough.
Tatum, in particular, was rough. In the first half, he shot 2-of-11 from the field and 0-of-5 from deep. Combined with a turnover-prone final few minutes, Tatum’s otherwise impressive showing was marred by pockets of misfortune.
For the most part, Tatum was the perfect offensive hub. Scheierman’s success was largely a product of Tatum’s gravity. As were a lot of Boston’s open shots. But Pritchard chipped in, too.
He was the spark that lifted Boston’s offense onward and upward after a slow start. Without his 15 first-half points, the Knicks may have steamrolled the Celtics from the jump. But quick drives, turnaround mid-range shots, and deep-range threes spearheaded Pritchard’s unconscious offensive attack.
Meanwhile, on the other end, Neemias Queta’s foul trouble and Nikola Vucevic’s struggles guarding the pick-and-roll allowed Brunson to feast. Mitchell Robinson, too. Both took advantage of the situation at hand, shredding the Celtics’ defense.
By night’s end, the Knicks were smiling, screaming, and hugging Hart on the court. The Celtics sulked back to the very locker room where their season ended last year, knowing well that they could likely be back in a couple of weeks’ time.
Jaylen Brown would have helped. They needed a steadier hand down the stretch. And Hart won’t always nail five second-half threes (or score 15 points in the fourth quarter). From those lenses, there isn’t much to worry about after Thursday.
But the Celtics won’t put those goggles on. They were in it. They had a chance to win. And the game slipped away.
It seems more likely than not that Joe Mazzulla kept some secrets tucked away, saving some tactics for the playoffs. But Mike Brown almost certainly did the same.
Right now, the Hart-breaking loss stings. It’s frustrating. But a week from now, it may only be film-room fodder. And based on all the areas of improvement from Thursday, the fodder will be important.
