.jpg)
4 hours ago
1
It's no secret that the Boston Celtics have an overreliance on one aspect of their game: the three-pointer. They've had championship success, but their love story with the three-point line hit a huge snag during Game 1 against the New York Knicks on Monday night, which they lost 108-105 in overtime.
They have averaged the most threes made per game in each of the last two seasons. Boston took it to another level in Game 1 against the Knicks, however, attempting a whopping 60 three-pointers. Only 11 times over the last two years in the regular and postseason has a team taken 60+ threes, and the Celtics are now responsible for six.
But they hit just 15 of those 60 threes. That meant they missed an NBA playoff record 45 triples. Celtics star guard Jaylen Brown believes the Knicks' defensive strategy had a lot to do with that.
Jaylen Brown reveals Knicks unique defensive strategy
In the first round, the Celtics were just 10th in threes made per game (11.8) and 12th in threes attempted per game (31.2). That was way down from the 17.8 they made out of 48.2 in the regular season. And a big reason for that was the Orlando Magic.
Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp
As Jaylen Brown outlined after the Game 1 loss against the Knicks, the Magic's strategy was to run the Celtics off the line and limit the impact of their long range prowess. The Knicks decided to do the exact opposite: they let the Celtics fall in love with life beyond the arc. That ended up being their downfall.
"Orlando kinda took the three-point line away. It felt like [the Knicks] were kinda daring us to shoot, like they wanted us to shoot those shots. We didn’t make them tonight. But I felt like we had a ton of good looks. Some maybe we forced up and we settled for sure, and we'll look at those and be better at those. But that's an abnormal game for us in terms of shooting the basketball. All our guys we trust, we got great shooters on this team."
— Celtics on CLNS (@CelticsCLNS) May 6, 2025In the third quarter, when the Knicks began their comeback, the Celtics took 20 shots, 19 of which were from three. They went 7-for-19, however, which was decent. That led them to keep shooting in the fourth, when the bottom fell out and they went 2-for-15.
Jaylen Brown was certainly part of the problem, as he went 6-for-10 from inside the arc, but instead of continuing to be aggressive, settled for 10 three-pointers, only one of which he hit. Jayson Tatum was also 4-for-15 from deep, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White combined to go 7-for-23, and the bench went 3-for-12.
Talk about the perfect storm. As Brown said, they had a lot of quality looks that simply didn't go down. With six guys who averaged 1+ three-pointer a game on 35 percent shooting or better this year, they should bounce back in Game 2 on Wednesday if they keep getting good shots.
MORE CELTICS NEWS
English (US)