For the first time since the 2020-21 season, the Boston Celtics will not be in the Eastern Conference Finals. After winning the NBA Finals last year, the No. 2 seed Celtics were upset by the No. 3 seed New York Knicks in the conference semifinals, 4-2. To add injury to insult, superstar forward Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles in Game 4 — which leads to plenty of questions about how the Celtics will navigate the future.
How did Boston fare? At an average of 125 points per game, the Celtics defeated the Knicks 4-0 in their regular-season series. In an interview with NBA legend Steve Nash on “Mind the Game,” LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers asked the Hall of Famer whether he believes the Celtics become “bored.” After all, Boston placed in the top two of the Eastern Conference during the regular season for the fourth consecutive year.
“It seems like sometimes, it seems like they get bored sometimes with the — I don’t want to say the process. Because I mean, shit, they are who they are, and when you look at Tatum and [Jaylen] Brown, this is years and years and years and years, they’ve punched their 10,000 hours,” James said. “But sometimes it seems like they get a little bored because of how great they are. Not only as those two as individuals, but then as a team sometimes it looks like they get bored.”
Nash thinks it’s one of the reasons Boston lost their opening two games against New York.
The Celtics led the Knicks by 20 points in the third quarter of Game 1 before losing 108-105 in overtime. Before the Knicks won 91-90 thanks to clutch free throws from Jalen Brunson, Boston had a 20-point lead in the third quarter of Game 2 and a 16-point lead with less than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. In fact, the Knicks became only the second team in the play-by-play era to win three postseason series with a 14-point comeback.
“Then they stop maybe the details, the spacing, going too soon or not waiting long enough and not getting downhill, not touching the paint, settling for longer jump shots,” Nash said. “That’s just the story of their team. We know they have another gear, and then they show it in Game 3.”
Although the Knicks obviously wanted it more, most people would say that the Celtics were the more “talented” team in this series. New York made more big plays in the closing minutes of game after game, in addition to playing better defense.