Celtics
The Celtics didn’t have it on Friday, but their series ended long before Friday’s disaster.
Jaylen Brown fouled out late in the third quarter. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
The Celtics’ season ended in brutal fashion on Friday, as the Knicks stormed into the Eastern Conference finals with a 119-81 victory.
Here are the takeaways.
The good times are over, at least for now.
Last season, after the Celtics blew out the Mavericks en route to a title, we wrote about how important it was that Celtics fans appreciate the good years, which were happening in real-time. The point, obviously, was that as good as the Celtics’ situation seemed, nothing great lasts forever.
On Friday – much sooner than anyone expected – the good times officially ended, at least for a while. Trailing 3-2 in a series and clinging to shreds of hope, the Celtics started cold and never got on track. The defense was nearly as bad as the offense – the Knicks got whatever they wanted against an NBA team that looked like it had absolutely nothing left in the tank both physically and emotionally.
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We’ll get to the events of Friday’s game (if you want to read about them) in a minute, but there are three ways to look at the loss, all of which are perhaps equally valid.
First, you can look at the past – this Celtics team has been making deep playoff runs since Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Al Horford took them to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2018, when they came just one win from a trip to the Finals. They made the conference finals four more times and the Finals twice, and they won a title with various iterations of the same group, led by Tatum and Brown. History will shine very favorably on this Celtics group, and not just because banners hang forever. This was an elite team built around two players who joined the franchise at the age of 19 and grew into superstars en route to the franchise’s 18th championship. The good times were very good, and Friday’s events do nothing to detract from them.
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The present, however, is a lot less cheery. Friday’s loss was as bad as it gets, especially on the heels of a Game 5 that showed a lot of grit and heart. Playing in front of a raucous Madison Square Garden crowd, the Knicks tore the Celtics apart and midway through the second quarter, the only people who seemed to have any doubt about the outcome of the game were New York-based NBA writers who somehow seemed to still believe in the Knicks’ ability to blow it.
But the Knicks weren’t going to blow Friday’s game – not against this husk of a Celtics team, which now has to look to a very uncomfortable future. The Celtics enter a cost-cutting offseason in a unique place – they were already going to need to make deep salary cuts to their roster, but now they have the added variable of a looming season without Tatum. A season without their best player is as good a time as any to rethink everything up to and including a major rebuild or retool.
Friday’s loss will in no way define this era of Celtics’ basketball, but it did bring it to an end with a disappointing thud.
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“It stings, as it should,” Jaylen Brown said. “Any time losing, it stings, especially finishing your season like this. But it just wasn’t our year.”
The series was over before Game 6.
The Celtics didn’t have it on Friday, but their series ended long before Friday’s disaster.
They were in danger after blowing a 20-point lead in Game 1 at home, missing more makeable 3-pointers than they had all season. They were in mortal peril after doing the exact same thing in Game 2. Both of those losses happened before Jayson Tatum ruptured his Achilles, and – it should be noted – that game featured a double-digit lead by the Celtics which was also slipping out of reach before Tatum was injured.
After picking up a “Win One For Jayson” victory on Wednesday that put a little doubt into Knicks fans, Friday’s loss was the ugliest of the bunch. It was also, however, by far the most understandable – the Celtics looked exhausted and defeated, which tracks with the events of the past week and a half. When the Celtics missed their first few 3-pointers, the Knicks started to build a bit of a lead, and the Celtics tried to shoot themselves back into the game (very unsuccessfully). Before the end of the first half, the lead had ballooned above 20, and the Celtics lost a third quarter they desperately needed to win to have any chance at all by eight.
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Games like Friday happen when you’ve played as many games as the Celtics have played over the last 24 months, especially after watching Tatum go down. The result was ugly, but the loss was understandable.
The Celtics didn’t lose the series because of Game 6. They didn’t even lose the series because of Tatum’s injury. They lost the series because both Games 1 and 2 were eminently winnable, and they let both slip away.
Jaylen Brown had an awful game.
After putting together one of his best performances in a Celtics uniform on Wednesday, Brown ended the 2024-25 season shooting 8-for-20 from the field with seven turnovers. The Knicks closed ranks against him and prevented him from getting into any kind of a rhythm, and the Celtics never got into anything close to the flow they established in Game 5. Brown committed his fifth foul midway through the third quarter, and Mazzulla left him in only for Brown to pick up his sixth foul with 2:51 left in the quarter.
Brown fouling out had little effect on the game – the Celtics were dead in the water long before he picked up his sixth, and Brown sitting down simply put fewer hopeless miles on his legs.
“You take time, sit back, and kind of figure it out,” Brown said. “But I’m excited. Things didn’t go your way this year, things didn’t go our way this year, and it’s unfortunate. But we hold our head up regardless.
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“Losing to the Knicks feels like death. But I was always taught that there’s life after death, so we’ll get ready for whatever’s next in the journey. I’ll be ready for it.”
The Celtics needed more from Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.
White’s brilliance at the start of Game 5 helped the Celtics get off to a fast start, but he missed all of his 3-point attempts in the first half Friday and continued to struggle badly defending Jalen Brunson.
If the Celtics were to have any chance at forcing a Game 7, they needed White to be significantly better. He finished 3-for-11, including 2-for-8 from three, and he was a staggering -45 in the box score.
Holiday, in what may very well have been his last game as a part of the franchise, shot 1-for-8 from the field and turned the ball over twice. Holiday’s tenure with the Celtics should (and will) be remembered for the title he helped them win, but if Friday’s game was his finale, it ended on a badly discordant note.
No Luke Kornet magic.
Kornet’s magic ended with Game 5’s buzzer, but he did start his first-ever playoff game, and he recorded the highest plus/minus of any starter with a sizzling -16.
The margins were a mess.
The Knicks shot 21 free throws to the Celtics’ 10, they grabbed 15 offensive rebounds, and they even made four more 3-pointers than the Celtics. The last point alone essentially guaranteed a Knicks’ win. The other two played key roles in turning Friday’s loss into a bloodbath.
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“Seemed like it went left pretty quick,” White said succinctly.
What’s next?
The Knicks advance to take on a Pacers team that might give them more of a fight than they expect.
The Celtics will head back to Boston and lick their wounds for a summer preparing for what promises to be one of the oddest seasons in recent memory.
They won’t look the same the next time we see them, which is to be expected. After all, good times never last.
Of course, it’s worth noting that bad times don’t always last either.
“I know Boston — it looks gloomy right now, obviously, with JT being now, and us ending the year, but it’s a lot to look forward to,” Brown said. “I want the city to feel excited about that. This is not the end. I’m looking forward to what’s next.”
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