BSJ Game Report: Celtics 116, Knicks 102 - 3-point barrage buries Knicks, gives C's eighth-straight win

NEW YORK -- Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the Knicks, with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

Jaylen Brown and Jalen Brunson went back and forth in the first quarter, but Boston ended it with a four-point lead. Brown continued to hit in the second quarter and he went into halftime with 20, but the quarter ended even thanks to six Knicks offensive rebounds and four 3-pointers. The Celtics went 9-13 from 3 in the third quarter to push their lead as high as 20, but a Knicks run cut it to nine early in the fourth. Boston answered that and pushed the lead back up to 20 midway through the quarter to hold on for their eighth straight win. 

Box Score

HEADLINES

- 3-point barrage: The lead was hanging around single digits for most of the night, reaching 10 a couple of times, but then the floodgates opened in the third. The game went from close to blowout in a hurry because of this offensive explosion. 

- Jaylen Brown’s big night: He went toe-to-toe with Jalen Brunson in the first half and was key to holding New York off as the Knicks were making shots in the second quarter. He dropped 30 on a night where the rest of the scoring was very spread out.

- Al Horford steps up: He had six fourth-quarter points but four offensive rebounds and was a key part of the stretch where the Celtics played through the Knicks' run and answered it with a run of their own.

“We went to those post-ups just because we saw that it was another opportunity to create a 2-on-1 and they were doubling those, and he did a great job,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He had one finish, had another offensive rebound and he passed out for a couple of open shots. When he can really affect the game defensively and as kind of a facilitator, it's big for us."

- More separation: The lead in the East is now eight games with 25 games left. Meanwhile, out west, seven games separate one-through-eight. Boston is running away with this, and their magic number to win the East is down to 18 and we’re still in February. Boston also has the fourth-easiest remaining schedule, so they can wrap things up in pretty short order. 

TURNING POINT

New York had tied the game at 64 early in the third and then Boston whipped off a 33-13 run over nine minutes to break the game open. The Knicks made a run after that, but Boston squashed it and rebuilt the lead to 20 in the fourth quarter. 

THINGS I LIKED

- Boston’s answer to the Knicks run: New York went on a 13-2 run to shave the Boston lead to nine, but Mazzulla let them play through it. 

“In that run, I didn't feel like it was self-induced …  I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary,” Mazzulla said. “I felt like our team is in the right mindframe, and we just had to regroup and kind of execute."

That's where Horford came in with his post-ups on Bojan Bogdanovic. They slowed the game down a little, got back under control, and finished it off … all without needing a timeout. 

“Teams are going to make runs, how can we get back on track?” Brown said after the game. “That's awareness from us but also awareness from the coaching staff. So in the playoffs when times get like that, timeout would be great, but we also gotta be great at being able to get ourselves settled back down."

- Jaylen Brown: He finished with 30 points on 54% shooting, eight rebounds, three assists and two “too small” celebrations after scoring in the paint. He’s come out of the break on fire. 

- Jayson Tatum: The stats don’t jump off the page, but this kind of game is both why he’s so valuable to the Celtics and why he won’t win MVP. He willingly drew double teams and passed out of them to give Boston advantages. 

“He deserves a lot, like a lot of credit, because he could say, eff it, like, I want to score 30 every night, I want to get the MVP, but he's not doing that,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “And I think people are overlooking that. And you have to give him credit because when he does that, it makes everybody else do that, and then we're winning games because everybody's feeling good, everybody's scoring, we're all dangerous. So I think he deserves a lot more credit than he's getting.”

Mazzulla said Tatum put himself on Brunson, and the length seemed to be the answer to Brunson’s big first half. Brunson made far less of an impact in the second half. 

Porzingis finding his shot: He was 2-6 for seven first-half points, and then he went perfect in the second half to lead Boston with 15 second-half points. He hit three 3-pointers to break out of a game-and-a-half slow start out of the All-Star break. 

Jrue Holiday and Derrick White: I’m combining them because they had very similar nights. Holiday had 12 points while White had 13. They both had six assists. They both had two steals. They both filled in the gaps very nicely for the Celtics. 

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE

- Jalen Brunson’s grift: The man knows the tricks and he uses them all. He baited a few Celtics into fouls by changing pace and stopping in front of them. I thought that play had been eliminated from the game but maybe he found a loophole in the system. He also … ahem … sold an offensive foul. 

- Rebounding: They settled down later in the game, but the Knicks got too many second-chance points (18-8 advantage).

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- It’s starting to come together

Earlier this season, I said things were going exactly how they should for a contending team. They were making some mistakes but figuring their way through them. I said back then that there was a definitive process they had to get through to reach their peak. 

Well, here we are with 25 games left and they're showing the fruits of that labor. Their lulls seem to be getting shorter. Their answers are getting stronger. And the team is getting more malleable to what the game needs on a given night. 

But they're still not done. 

“I feel like we're not where we need to be yet and that's a good thing,” Horford said. “It's such a long season, it's hard to be what we can, but it's encouraging that we're continuing to win in different ways and play differently.”

They're basically 70% finished with the regular season. This is exactly where they should be right now. It’s all going according to plan. 

Next up: Boston comes back home to take on the Sixers on Tuesday night