It didn’t take long for the Celtics to show off why they're different.
Jayson Tatum scored Boston’s first points off a screen from Luke Kornet, who was pressed into starting service because Kristaps Porzingis got sick. Karl-Anthony Towns awkwardly ran to Tatum, stopped, and spun as Tatum whizzed by him. Precious Achiuwa tried to come over to help, but he was worried about Jaylen Brown in the corner, so he had too much ground to cover to do anything besides be on the wrong end of a poster.
The print 📸 https://t.co/dxXl1rZmOp pic.twitter.com/rt6yAyIzie
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) February 9, 2025
His next basket came off another Kornet screen, with Towns less anxious to show how slow he is to change directions. So Tatum rose up and buried a 3-pointer in his face.
Tatum’s first eight baskets involved actions with Towns. Three of those baskets were dunks, one was a layup, and four were 3s.
“He did a great job just kind of taking what the defense gave him,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters after the win. “His ability to just play versus different coverages throughout the game, get the shot that he wants, and play with a sense of poise, that was a special performance.”
It was also a pretty clear message.
Let’s go back to that first play.
It was clear that Boston was going to make Towns’ life miserable every chance they got. Sure, he was nursing a sore knee, but he could get bionic knee replacements and it wouldn’t change how often Tatum put him in a blender. Towns is a major driver of New York’s success, but it’s all on the offensive end. He’s a target on defense, and Boston showed no mercy going after him.
Kornet might not have played much under normal circumstances, but he’s still a pretty good player. Kornet had seven screen assists in this game for 17 Celtics points, mostly because his screens sprung Tatum free over and over to cleanly attack Towns.
And the Knicks are among the worst teams in opponent 3-point percentage. They're 26th in opponent above-the-break 3-point percentage and 28th in corner 3 percentage. With Brown parked in the corner on that first play, Achiuwa had to be conscious of making those numbers worse while trying to protect the rim. It was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario that ended up damning him to viral highlight hell.
To put this all more plainly: The Celtics can kill teams in a lot of different ways, and if a team has any weaknesses at all, they will find and exploit them.*
Mazzulla loves to compare his team to predators in the wild, but the part of his analogy that gets lost is when the big cats are fat and happy. A pride of lions will sit under a tree and watch a hundred impala roam by if all of their bellies are full. It’s when they're hungry that they become instruments of death.
Saturday night in snowy Manhattan brought out all of Boston’s hunting instincts because they weren’t just trying to wash the taste of the loss to Dallas from their mouths, they were trying to remind everyone who the real king of the NBA jungle is. As much as they might publicly call this another day at the office, this was an opportunity to send a little message while they were at it.
What better place than Madison Square Garden on prime time network television?
“Besides Boston, it’s probably the best place to play, “ Tatum said. “They got all the celebrities, but they also have an edge about them. They know basketball. They're passionate. They chant and are cheering the whole time. It’s a special place.”
The setting was right, and so was the timing. Fresh off an infuriating loss at their own Garden, the Celtics went to this one and made sure the NBA world was clear on a few things.
The Celtics are still the champs and they proved they can play like it when they want to.
The Celtics don’t need everyone to be healthy to play great basketball.
The Celtics have too many guys who do too many things, and when a few do those things really well at the same time, they will win pretty easily.
And the Celtics have two of the best players in the world, and even if you limit one of them, the other can still bury you … especially if it’s the guy who just passed Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens to become the franchise’s ninth all-time leading scorer at 26 years old.
The Knicks are really good. The Cavaliers are even better. Both of those teams have weaknesses and the Celtics have spent this week picking at them. The Knicks got the message loud and clear on Saturday night. Whether it was Towns in the spin cycle or hitting Jalen Brunson with a bunch of screens and post-ups, the Celtics showed us why they're right in believing they can turn it on when they want.
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*Celtics' ability to find and exploit weaknesses does not apply to sub-.500 teams missing star players, any teams missing four or more players, or during home games after three or more games on the road.