BOSTON — Underneath the Celtics basket, the team’s three longest-tenured players savored a moment during the team’s ring ceremony Tuesday night. As the other coaches and players walked out to collect their jewelry, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Al Horford stood near each other, the final three in line to pick up their prizes for winning the 2024 championship.
The emotions impacted each player differently. Tatum couldn’t stop smiling. Horford aimed to soak in as much of the jubilant scene as possible. Brown said he needed to fight back tears. He had mostly felt shock in June while celebrating Boston’s Finals win. Four months later, as the Celtics raised their banner and received their rings, he could appreciate the accomplishment in full. It didn’t come easy for him, Tatum or Horford.
“That ring is just an object, right?” Brown said. “But it’s the everything. The emotions, the heartbreak, the embarrassment, the work, the drive, the dedication, like that’s what that ring represents, you know what I mean? All of that is what you feel when you hold something up, you know? So for me, that’s what was going through my mind. And it was an amazing feeling.”
It must have been strange for the players to shift their focus to a basketball game afterward, but they did it well enough to dominate New York 132-109. After celebrating the result of their play last season, the Celtics wanted to remember on opening night everything it took to win that championship. Joe Mazzulla said they are aiming to “replicate the process of winning.”
On Tuesday, that involved a performance similar to many of the team’s best from last season, but with an even heavier reliance on the 3-point shot. The Celtics tied an NBA record with 29 made 3-pointers despite failing to convert any of their final 13 attempts. Hotter than fire over the first three quarters and change, they had 8:54 to give themselves sole possession of the league record.
Instead, with the fans chanting “one more three,” the Celtics fell short in comedic fashion. Brown, Xavier Tillman and Jordan Walsh air-balled shots that would have extended the record. The team’s final eight attempts were all 3-point misses. They could have tried at least one more 3-pointer during the final minute but intentionally dribbled out the shot clock instead. The crowd met that decision with boos.
In the locker room afterward, Payton Pritchard told Sam Hauser the Celtics would have hit the required 3-pointer if they had just played real basketball down the stretch. Hauser, laughing, said they instead just rushed into the first shots they could find.
That wasn’t the case for the entire night. New York is still in the process of figuring out how a new roster fits together. The Celtics know as much about themselves as any team could know at the beginning of a regular season. And they played like it.
They understood to keep feeding Tatum after he shot four-for-six from behind the arc in the first quarter. Once the Knicks started overplaying him, the Celtics recognized the openings the extra pressure on him created. He consistently drew a second defender, found an open teammate and watched as his teammates swung the ball around the perimeter for quality 3-point looks. In addition to Tatum’s 10 assists, he handed out several hockey assists, taking advantage of whatever strategy the Knicks threw at him. His reads, like his outside shooting, were on the mark. He didn’t sound surprised to see his team look advanced so early in the season.
“I think just offensively, I feel like we picked up from where we were last year,” Tatum said. “We brought almost everybody back. We played to our strengths. We know what we’re trying to do. We know who we’re trying to attack. We know what sets and actions to get in and we work on it all the time. We work on reads every single day in practice and that’s essentially all we do. Yeah, we outplayed them and things, but we just make reads. We know where to be, we know when to cut, we know where to space the floor, we know when to make the extra pass. And obviously, we got some super talented guys and more often than not, we got at least four guys on the court who can shoot 3s. We just always try to make the right play and get a great shot.”
After questions about his jump shot throughout the offseason, Tatum (37 points on 14-of-18 shooting) shushed the doubters for at least one night by hitting eight of his 11 3-point attempts. In the first quarter alone, he produced what would have represented a great game for most players alive with 15 points, five assists and three rebounds. Hunting his outside shot, he splashed a 3-point attempt over Karl Towns’ pick-and-roll coverage on the first Boston possession and drilled three more triples during the opening 12 minutes. He said his jump shot, which he tweaked over the offseason, felt good.
“I’m proud of, obviously, the way he shot the ball, but more just how he dominated the game and all the areas, and picked his spots really well, took the shots that he wanted,” said Mazzulla. “But I mean, the guy just works hard every day. He doesn’t allow things to get in the way of what’s most important, and that kind of showed tonight, and I expect him to have a great season. That doesn’t mean there won’t be ups and downs, but I’m happy for him that he got off to a great start.”
Josh Hart on the Celtics’ hot shooting:
“The NBA needs to drug test all of them, I’ll tell you that right now. I ain’t ever seen nothing like that before” 😭 pic.twitter.com/urNChH3Rpu
— Knicks Videos (@sny_knicks) October 23, 2024
For a regular-season opener, the Celtics were remarkably sharp in their execution. They handed out 33 assists but committed just three turnovers. They outrebounded New York 11-5 on the offensive glass and took 31 more 3-point attempts than the Knicks. With that shot margin, the Celtics had math on their side. They led 43-24 after the first quarter despite allowing New York to shoot 55 percent from the field during the period.
The Knicks should compete for the Eastern Conference crown, but the Celtics are the kings for now. They walked away with just one bummer: Horford’s ring did not fit. When measuring himself for it shortly after dislocating his finger during the playoffs, he failed to account for the reality that the swelling, persistent at the time, would eventually subside. It had probably been a long, long time since he had made such a rookie mistake.
(Top photo of Jaylen Brown shooting against Jalen Brunson: David Butler II / Imagn Images)
