The Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed, the Boston Celtics (61-21), will take on the third-seeded New York Knicks (51-31) in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. This will mark the 15th (!) postseason meeting between two of the three charter franchises of the original Basketball Association of America; the most recent matchup was in 2013, when Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks eliminated the last-gasp Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce Celtics in the first round in six games.
What we know about the Celtics
The defending champions blitzed through the regular season as one of only two teams to rank in the top five in the NBA in offensive and defensive efficiency. (The other? The 68-win Thunder.) They then dispensed with the seventh-seeded Magic in a hard-fought, exceedingly physical five-game series bookended by a pair of blowouts, in which Jayson Tatum reminded everyone why he’s about to earn his fourth straight selection to the All-NBA First Team.
After suffering a right wrist injury in Game 1 that cost him Game 2, Boston’s ace closed the series brilliantly, averaging 36 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.7 blocks per game over the final three contests. The 27-year-old Tatum has a strong claim to being the most complete player in the NBA — an efficient three-level scorer; a composed offensive engine capable of creating great looks for others; an excellent multipositional defender equally adept at bodying up centers on the defensive glass and switching out onto jitterbug guards; and, with 117 postseason games, five Eastern Conference finals appearances, two NBA Finals and an NBA championship under his belt, one of the most seasoned playoff performers in the league.
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As phenomenal as Jalen Brunson was in closing out the Pistons, and as he has been throughout his postseasons in New York, Tatum can credibly assert that he’s the best player in this series. He’s also flanked by a championship core: Finals MVP and four-time All-Star Jaylen Brown, whose right knee seems just fine; elite two-way guards Derrick White and Jrue Holiday (who missed the final three games of Round 1 with a right hamstring strain); floor-spacing, rim-protecting, mismatch-mashing big men Kristaps Porziņġis and Al Horford; and a bench led by newly minted Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard.
Boston’s loaded for bear and, after a vigorous test from the Magic, ready for war. If the Knicks aren’t, the C’s might walk straight through them.
What we know about the Knicks
On one hand, the offseason revamp that brought in Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges did pay dividends. New York won one more regular-season game than last season, moved up to fifth in points scored per possession, finished either in or just outside the top 10 in a slew of defensive categories, and profiled as something like the fifth- or sixth-best team in the NBA, paced by likely All-NBA campaigns from Brunson and Towns.
Pop the hood on the Knicks’ season, though, and things look a little less rosy.
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New York went 28-21 after Jan. 1, with the NBA’s 14th-ranked offense and 16th-ranked defense in that span. The Knicks’ high-priced and highly touted starting five — Brunson, Towns, Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart — was outscored by nine points in 379 minutes over the final three-plus months of the season, with a defensive rating (117.3) on par with the 24-58 Philadelphia 76ers’ full-season mark. The early-season success that Brunson and Towns found in the two-man game largely dissipated — a quietly burbling issue that exploded into full view in Game 2 of the first round, when Towns went without a field goal attempt in the final 17 minutes of a dispiriting loss.
In many ways, the first-round matchup with Detroit offered a microcosm of the Knicks’ season on the whole: more wins than losses, yes, but in often underwhelming fashion, with occasional bursts of brilliance and incredible shot-making bailing out arrhythmic offense, shaky defense and at-times head-scratching decision-making.
Those bursts of brilliance were enough to outlast young, inexperienced Detroit. Against the defending champs, though? The brilliance will have to be a hell of a lot more consistent than that.
Head-to-head
Boston swept the season series, 4-0 … and it felt that lopsided.
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The Celtics began the season celebrating their championship win by raising a banner, receiving their rings … and absolutely destroying New York, 132-109, behind an NBA-record-tying 29 3-pointers:
The Knicks would have to wait more than three months for their chance at revenge … only to get absolutely destroyed, 131-104, by a Celtics team without Porziņġis or Holiday, thanks to a 40-point, seven-triple performance from Tatum.
(In the spirit of giving equal time, New York was without Anunoby and center Mitchell Robinson in that one.)
Another February matchup once again saw Boston dominate, leading by as many as 27 early in the third quarter before a fourth-quarter run to cut it to single digits in what would wind up a 118-105 Celtics win.
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The Knicks played the Celtics close only once this season: in early April, with both teams barreling toward their respective seedings in the top half of the Eastern pecking order. A 12-2 late-fourth-quarter run gave New York a three-point lead with 50 seconds remaining, drawing the Knicks within arm’s reach of their first win of the season over an elite opponent.
Tatum, however, had other ideas:
After Tatum’s buzzer-beating, game-tying triple sent it to overtime, strong Celtics…
Dan Devine
