BOSTON – For the second straight game, the Boston Celtics hosted a red-hot offense at TD Garden. And for the second straight game, they cooled off their opponent by holding them under 100 points in a lopsided win.
On Monday night, the New York Knicks arrived in Boston riding a three-game win streak, including two straight games in which its offense topped 126 points. The Celtics stepped up to the challenge, knocking them off, 114-98, behind a 35-point effort from Jayson Tatum.
Two nights prior, it was a similar story. The Toronto Raptors came in hot off two straight wins in which its offense scored 123 or more, and Boston, despite playing on the second night of a back-to-back, logged a season-best defensive effort in a 117-94 victory.
Both wins came against physical teams; especially the Knicks, who punish opposing defenses with offensive rebounds and second-chance points. Against the Celtics, however, they didn’t have much luck.
Boston buckled down defensively in the second half, limiting New York to just 23 points in the third quarter followed by 22 points in the fourth. The Knicks mustered just four second-chance points during that second half, which Jaylen Brown later said was “the key” to the win.
“We just had to get in the mix a little bit, rough up the game a little bit,” said Brown, who logged 22 points, five rebounds, and six assists in 36 minutes of action. “Those bigs down there, they’re big and physical. Our guards, we’ve got to jump in there and get in the fight and make it easier for those rebounds that fall in that free-throw area, make it easier for us to get those. If nobody’s in there fighting, those are gonna fall right in their lap and they’re gonna be able to get second-chance points.”
Limiting second-chance points has been one of the staples for this Celtics team. They’re allowing just 11.8 such points per game, the second-best mark in the league.
They’ve also been the best at limiting points in the paint, allowing 41.0 such points per game. In the second half against the Knicks, they gave up just 10 points in the paint.
Part of the reason why New York struggled so much offensively also had to do with Boston’s press defense. The C’s were able to speed up New York’s offense by applying full-court pressure, especially in the third quarter.
“The press just makes them get into their offense later in the clock, and then if you could have a small wrinkle behind the press, it could just throw them off kilter,” said head coach Joe Mazzulla. “I think that team is a huge rhythm team when they can get into their stuff, and they know when they’re getting the ball, and they use the shot clock. I thought it was just a battle of pace, and I thought our press kind of dictated the pace in the second half and got them into the shot clock late, and then we were able to switch and then we did a good job in our individual defense at the end of the shot clock.”
Heading into the season, several Celtics said they wanted to establish a strong defensive identity with this team. It’s already showing through the first 10 games, as they rank No. 2 in the league with a 105.8 defensive rating, while also holding top five spots in several miscellaneous defensive categories.
Their defense will be put to an even greater test the next time they hit the court: Wednesday night in Philadelphia against the 76ers’ No. 3 ranked offense. Boston lost the first meeting of the season series last week in Philly, though it still managed to hold the Sixers to a season-low 106 points. If the C’s could somehow hold them under 100 points as they did against their last two opponents, it would mark the longest such streak since March of 2022.
