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The New York Knicks had just defeated the Boston Celtics on their home court a little more than two weeks ago, and it would be fair to say that Boston were going through a pretty rough patch early on in the season. The Thanksgiving eve loss to New York was the lowest point of their nightmarish start to the 2018-19 season.
"I was thinking about it since we lost to them," Kyrie Irving said yesterday. "I remember players from other teams asking about what's going on when we were 10-10."
But they got their revenge this time around.
Boston's offensive machinery worked smoothly right from the tip-off, and left no room for error for the visitors as they coasted to 128-100 blowout win.
Let's take a look at a few key takeaways from this redemptive run by the Celtics.
#3 Kyrie Irving dropped a game-high 22 points, left the game early
Irving was not ready to be handed a second loss at the hands of the Knicks in two weeks. He dropped a game-high 22 points in just 30 minutes of playtime before heading out a bit early.
He rubbed his right shoulder and swung it around in pain, eventually asking Brad Stevens to sub him out. His shoulder was then wrapped in ice and he left with just about 4 minutes left in the already-decided game.
"It was just a weird play at the end of the game. It was like I got caught up and as I was trying to get the ball out to Marcus for 3, it just caught me weird in the shoulder. So probably AC joint or something like that. I'll be alright," Irving said after the match.
He finished with a near double-double of 22 points on 9-for-15 shooting, in addition to eight assists.
From another perspective, Irving's performance against the Knicks could put him even higher on the Knicks' wish-list for the next summer when he becomes a free-agent (if he doesn't re-sign with the Celtics).
#2 Tim Hardaway Jr.'s valiant effort was not enough to drive the Knicks through
Hardaway has been averaging 20 points in the last 10 games he has played for New York, and he continued his show of consistency in this rout as well. He equaled Irving's total of 22 points on an ordinary 7 of 19 shooting from the floor, but was not able to make much of a difference to the Knicks' plight.
Everybody on the Knicks roster was put in rotation by Coach David Fizdale, but none could make a difference. Bona fide stars like Enes Kanter contributed just 14 points, and Emmanuel Mudiay shot 5 of 15 from the floor.
This was Hardaway's highest score in the past five games (played against Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Washington and Boston), but it still wasn't enough.
"Not going to win in this league giving up 30 points per quarter," Hardaway said after the match. "Need to do a better job as a team and individually, including myself."
#1 The Celtics were the far better fast-break team in the game
With Frank Ntilikina, the Knicks' best perimeter defender, out for a third straight game, the visitors could not stop the Celtics when they came to score. New York committed 17 turnovers (higher than their season average of 14.2) in this regular season matchup, as a result of which the Celtics piled up 26 fast break points (Knicks had just 7).
On the other hand, Boston faltered on just 9 possessions (fewer than their season average of 13 turnovers per game) and at the same, affected 8 steals and 6 blocks on the defensive end.
"Terrible," Knicks coach David Fizdale said. "Terrible defense tonight. It was Swiss cheese. No matter what coverage we put in, we just didn't have it defensively tonight."
The Celtics went ahead to score the first three baskets of the game and from that point on, never trailed in the game.
Irving aptly summed up the ingredients that make the Celtics deadly as a unit down the stretch:
“Obviously, we have a great head coach that does a great job with play calling,” Irving said of Brad Stevens. “But he also gives us a lot of freedom to go out there and create for one another. We’ve been doing a great job of trusting each other, having everybody touch the ball during certain possessions, being aware of what the defense is trying to take away from us and then taking advantage of our mismatches.”
