Celtics struggle early, can’t finish rally in loss to Knicks: Takeaways

Boston Celtics

The Knicks were expected to be better than the Celtics, and they are.

After a highly competitive season opener, the Celtics were significantly less competitive against the Knicks on Friday, falling 105-95 to the team that eliminated them from the postseason last year at Madison Square Garden.

Here are the takeaways.

The Knicks, simply, are better.

To avoid the siren call of overreacting to a small sample size, let’s start with what we know.

The Knicks were expected to be better than the Celtics, and they are. The Celtics lost a lot of stellar defensive players, most notably Jrue Holiday, and they paid the price against Jalen Brunson, whose 31 points and five assists looked a little easier than they did last year during the regular season. Karl-Anthony Towns, meanwhile, feasted against a Celtics team that looks clumsy at times defensively and downright abysmal on the defensive glass.

As expected, the Celtics were absolutely decimated by the Knicks’ offensive rebounds. After a relatively solid performance against the Sixers in which they allowed just 10, they gave up 12 in the first half alone and 21 overall. Defensive rebounding will be a massive issue all season, but against teams like the Knicks – who have talented big men – it might be decisive before we even get to the Celtics’ other issues.

After giving up 42 points in the fourth quarter to drop their opener, the Celtics gave up 42 points in the second quarter, and the Knicks took an eight-point first-quarter deficit and reversed it into a 20-point halftime lead. The Celtics made the final score more respectable, but their second-half push had a decidedly Sisyphean flavor – whenever they threatened, the Knicks seemed to have a relatively simple answer. This year’s team is less talented and has far less margin for error, but even last year’s team would have struggled to win a game in which they gave up 42 points over the course of 12 minutes.

Simply put, this year’s Knicks are better than this year’s Celtics, and that will be the case against a number of opponents this year. It’s an unfamiliar feeling for Celtics fans, who saw some disappointing performances over the last two years, but very rarely had reason to believe their team was inferior overall.

It’s far too early to prognosticate where the Celtics will land at the end of season – in the same way that saying the Celtics should be expected to reach 45 (or even 50) games was overly optimistic after the preseason, saying the Celtics should tank because their new-look roster dropped a close game to the Sixers and a less-close one to a contender is overly pessimistic. The Knicks were the better team and were justifiably favored, and they won by double-digits.

But the Celtics are now 0-2, and their path back to .500 over their first seven games looks difficult to find and even harder to maintain.

“I told the guys, there are teams that can ease into a season, but we have to have a sense of urgency to develop the identity that we need,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters after the game.

Jaylen Brown had a tough game.

The Celtics aren’t going to win many games when Brown turns the ball over seven times.

Brown improved his shooting line a bit late (23 points on 9-for-18) and helped the Celtics make the final score a little prettier, but he wasn’t especially effective on either end – Brunson got by him on several occasions for costly buckets or passes, and he looked tentative with the ball in his hands against a voracious Knicks defense. Brown’s handle going left looked better than last year even against pressure, which made his unforced turnovers more frustrating.

Bad games happen, but the Celtics don’t have a lot of paths to victory this season if Brown has one.

The 3-point shooting was rough, too.

Similarly, the Celtics aren’t going to win many games when they don’t shoot well from three. That was true last year, and it’s doubly true now. As a team, the Celtics were 15-for-44 (34 percent), but if you remove Sam Hauser’s sparkling 6-for-10 performance from the picture – which isn’t how statistics work, but still feels illustrative – and they were 26 percent from deep. Derrick White was 3-for-11. Payton Pritchard was 1-for-7. Anfernee Simons was 1-for-4.

Combine missed 3-pointers with Brown’s turnovers and the Knicks’ staggering totals on the offensive glass, and it’s somewhat remarkable that the Celtics only lost by 10.

Joe Mazzulla made a line change.

After one preseason win, a livid Mazzulla answered every question about the Celtics’ defensive rebounding woes by saying he was just looking for five guys who will rebound.

After the Celtics surrendered several early offensive boards, Mazzulla went to great lengths to find his five guys who can rebound – apparently deciding that no one in his starting lineup was up to the task. He removed the entire starting group at once, putting in Xavier Tillman, Chris Boucher, Anfernee Simons, Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez.

That lineup played pretty well as the Celtics built their small first-quarter lead. Boucher in particular flew around blocking shots and making hustle plays, and the Celtics momentarily seemed to stymy the flow of offensive rebounds.

During the preseason, Mazzulla simply removed a player if he gave up an offensive board. That strategy might not be viable in the regular season, but expect him to find ways to make his displeasure clear if the Celtics don’t hit the glass.

How can the Celtics improve their rebounding woes?

After the game, Mazzulla laid out the three-pronged approach that he believes can help the Celtics mitigate what will likely be a season-long issue.

The first is being physical. The Celtics won’t be one of the league’s better rebounding teams, but they can be the best version of themselves by grinding away at the glass whenever the opportunity presents itself.

The second is by getting offensive rebounds. If they get offensive rebounds, they can even out the discrepancy in second-chance points – one of the game’s marginal stats, and Joe Mazzulla is nothing if not a fan of winning the margins.

Finally, the Celtics need to force turnovers. On that front, they were relatively successful on Friday, particularly in the second half. The Knicks finished with 15 turnovers, and all 10 of the Celtics’ steals came in the last two quarters.

Hugo Gonzalez was a bright spot.

The Celtics’ rookie made his debut after a DNP-CD against the Sixers as part of Mazzulla’s hockey change, and he was a bright spot – six points and four rebounds.

Offensively, Gonzalez largely scored on hustle plays – getting the rim in transition, and his first basket of his professional career was a nice take in a half-court set. He grabbed an offensive rebound and generally looked a lot more comfortable than a 19-year-old playing in his first NBA game has any business looking.

Defensively, Gonzalez got lost a few times, which – again – we can excuse given that he was a 19-year-old playing in his first NBA game. But he also made a few impact plays – forcing a turnover by pressing the Knicks toward halfcourt and picking off two of the Celtics’ 10 steals.

Gonzalez made a big impression: Stan Van Gundy spent much of the Amazon Prime broadcast praising his effort, and Blake Griffin declared himself a “fan and a stan” on the postgame show.

Josh Minott received a DNP-CD.

Minott was one of the preseason’s standout performers, but he didn’t leave the bench on Friday, despite the Celtics’ struggles. Perhaps Mazzulla didn’t like the matchup, or maybe the Celtics (and Celtics fans) will simply have to get used to the fact that outside of the team’s top six or seven players, there will be nights when useful rotation players don’t see the floor.

Next up

The Celtics are still looking for their first win, but the road ahead isn’t easy: They will travel to Detroit for Sunday afternoon’s showdown against a Pistons team that beat the heavyweight Rockets on Friday. On Monday, they travel just over 1,000 miles south to New Orleans to play the Pelicans on their third game in four nights. Their reward for their road-warrior schedule? A return to TD Garden to take on the Cavaliers next Wednesday.