NEW YORK -- This wasn’t easy. Even though the Celtics managed to get their lead up to 20 twice, they had to work really hard to get there, and the Knicks didn't let them get comfortable with the lead.
“I think tonight the Knicks brought the best out of us,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “It's important to see that. They brought the best out of us, they challenged us, they wanted to win.”
Even short-handed, the Knicks played the kind of tough, grind it out kind of game that Boston will see more of as the season, and postseason, wear on. But every punch the Knicks threw at the Celtics was countered. The Celtics didn’t just find a way to beat the Knicks, they found multiple ways within this one game.
“We've learned in the past few years that in the playoffs especially, we have to find different ways to win,” Al Horford said. “The Knicks really challenged us tonight and we have to find different ways to be effective. So, it's the strength of our group and it speaks of the versatility of the guys in this room. You had Jrue Holiday posting up. Pulling up for a three, playmaking. So it's playing to our strengths.”
The Celtics aren’t just the league’s best team right now, they might be making a case as the most dangerous. Yes, they like shooting 3-pointers, but the notion that that's all they are is off base. Even if the end result of what they do is shooting a long bomb, the process of getting there can be very different as the game goes on.
The Celtics showed that against the Knicks, playing fast, attacking the paint, and playing drive-and-kick early on, switching to isolation as Jaylen Brown got cooking, and then heading into a slow-down, post-up fourth quarter style to stop a Knicks run and restore a 20 point lead.
“When a guy has it going, how can we do it in the framework of our offense and not just give it to him to play one-on-one?” Mazzulla said after the game. “We had a little bit of that in the Chicago game. I thought we fixed that tonight, where it was each guy had a segment of the game but it was within the confines of our structure, and that's super important. And I thought we had that from the guys."
They built their first 20-point lead by shooting 9-13 from 3 in the third quarter. They didn't hit a 3 in the fourth (0-8) but still got that lead back. Horford was mostly quiet in the first half but suddenly he was the catalyst for a comeback because the Celtics saw that post-ups would create advantages.
The Celtics are seeing things they didn’t see right away earlier this season. They're processing the game much better than they did a year ago. They're not just relying on their talent, which is immense. They're maximizing their talent.
“Reading the game. Realizing fast but playing slow,” Brown said. “Recognizing what they're in, how they're guarding you, where the advantages are on the floor and then taking your time. Not getting too sped up. Not allowing teams to try to muck up the game. We're the more talented team. We gotta be the smarter team, as well. And when we do that, we're going to be tough to beat."
It reminds me of the cult classic martial arts movie Shaolin vs. Lama where during a fight, one fighter is asked “were you just using the Wu Tang school method against me?” and he responds “I’ve learned so many styles. Forgive me.”
The Celtics are not only becoming adept at switching between styles as needed, they can do it without changing their personnel. Holiday can play out of the post or spot up in the corner. Kristaps Porzingis can pop out for 3-pointers or punish a mismatch. Everyone in the starting lineup can play out of the post or on the perimeter. Everyone can play fast or slow. They can all pass, shoot, and dribble.
“That's the beauty of our team,” Porzingis said. “Every game for me individually and for other guys is a little bit different. But that's the thing, like, why we're so good is because we have answers for all those coverages. And then on top of that, it’s not only we have the answers for the coverages, but we have like five or seven different guys that can go off on each night. So you put those two things together, it's like, this is a headache for sure.”