Freed from the shackles of the Orlando Magic’s oppressive defense, the Celtics let it rain from 3-point range in Game 1 of their second-round series. They launched 60 threes against the New York Knicks, the most by any team in a playoff game in NBA history.
That bombs-away strategy has worked for Joe Mazzulla’s squad in the past. Boston attempted 60 threes in five regular-season games and won three of them, including in a 23-point pasting of the Knicks on opening night.
But on Monday, it backfired.
After finding success driving to the basket and drawing fouls over the first two quarters, the Celtics relied almost exclusively on the three ball after halftime. Thirty-four of their 41 second-half field-goal attempts came from beyond the arc. They attempted just one two-pointer in the third quarter — a transition dunk by Al Horford — and took just four shots inside 18 feet in the fourth, with one of those coming in the final minute of regulation.
Had the Celtics hit even a few more of those triples, this would have been a simple postseason oddity — and not an uncharacteristic one for a team that set the NBA record for made threes this season. But they didn’t. They laid brick after brick, missing more 3-pointers (45, the most ever in a playoff game) than they attempted in any of their five first-round games against Orlando.
And by not deviating from that approach despite the poor results, they allowed the Knicks to stage a stunning second-half comeback. Down 20 with less than 19 minutes remaining, New York rallied to win 108-105 in overtime at TD Garden to take a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who shot a combined 5-for-25 from deep in the loss, were torn when diagnosing how things went so wrong for Boston. Both pointed out that the majority of the threes the Celtics took were open (and often wide-open) looks that their fleet of accomplished shooters typically make. But they also believed they should have done more to put pressure on New York’s defense.
“It’s a lot of shots that we want certain guys taking, and (I) felt like we got some good looks,” Tatum said. “Obviously, in hindsight, if we could go back, we probably would drive the ball a little bit more, because we missed a lot of shots tonight. But it’s a balance. Sometimes it’s a make-or-miss league, and then there’s some times where you know you can get a better shot.”
After a Derrick White 23-footer put the Celtics ahead 75-55 with 5:47 remaining in the third quarter, the next 11 Boston possessions consisted of eight missed threes, two made threes (by Tatum on back-to-back trips) and one turnover. By the end of that stretch, the Knicks had trimmed their deficit from 20 points to six.
It was a radical departure from how the Celtics played in the second quarter, when they went 12-for-15 on two-point shots and added eight free throws while outscoring New York 35-20. Twenty of Boston’s 26 free-throw attempts came in the first half.
“In those moments when other teams got momentum, we can’t just fire up threes to break up momentum,” Brown said. “You’ve got to get to the free-throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket, maybe get an easy two, you know what I mean? Get some free throws, and then maybe the next 3-pointer feels a little bit better. I feel like we just settled in the second half a lot, but we’ll look at it and we’ll make adjustments.”
Brown said the Celtics “maybe forced the issue” with their second-half shot selection, adding: “Definitely our rhythm and our timing was a little bit off.” He acknowledged, though, that the Knicks gave them “a ton of good looks.”
“Some, maybe we forced up and settled, for sure,” he said. “We’ll look at those and be better at those. But that’s an abnormal game for us in terms of shooting the basketball.”
Horford hit a three to end the third quarter, but the Celtics went scoreless for nearly four minutes to start the fourth, missing another four threes and committing two more turnovers in the interim. They didn’t make a fourth-quarter field goal until the 6:26 mark, by which point the Knicks had tied the game at 86-86.
Late in the fourth, two Tatum threes on one possession, sandwiched around a Jrue Holiday offensive rebound, both missed the mark. He clanged another that would have broken a 100-100 deadlock with 9.1 seconds remaining.
“(There were) probably some times that we settled,” Tatum said. “I think, for myself, I could have put more pressure on the rim. But there’s a lot of times we felt like we got some really, really good looks and just couldn’t convert.”
Every Celtics starter missed at least five 3-pointers in the game except for Kristaps Porzingis, who exited due to illness after 13 minutes and did not return. Holiday went 2-for-7 from three in an otherwise impressive performance (7-for-14, 16 points, five offensive rebounds, three assists, one steal, one turnover in 39 minutes) after sitting out the previous three games with a hamstring strain. Tatum, Brown and White all missed nine threes apiece.
Horford made just one of his five 3-point attempts. Sam Hauser was 0-for-2 during an ugly four-minute shift before suffering an ankle injury that sent him to the locker room. (Porzingis and Hauser were Boston’s two most efficient 3-point shooters during the regular season, though both have been inconsistent this postseason. Their statuses for Game 2 on Wednesday are unclear.)
“It’s just being poised to recognize when to take it and when not to take it,” Brown said. “I don’t think we did a good job tonight of seeing the game, understanding the game. We were just firing it up for whatever reason. We’ve got to find a better rhythm to the paint, get a paint touch, get to the free-throw line, and those threes feel a little better. But we’ll look at it. Obviously, we were excited to start the second round of the playoffs, but we’ve got to play with more poise than we did tonight.”
The obvious silver lining for the Celtics: They set a new high-water mark for postseason 3-point inaccuracy, posted their second-worst overall field-goal percentage (35.1%) of Mazzulla’s head-coaching tenure and still only lost by three, in overtime. Brown had the ball in his hands with a chance to force a second OT but couldn’t get a shot off against Mikal Bridges as time expired.
“Whether it’s possession, shots, you could always find five to 10 that you could be better at,” said Mazzulla, whose team now trails in a playoff series for the first time since 2023. “So to me, I look at the process and the shot quality. Our shot quality was high. The points in the paint were even. We shot one more layup than they did. We shot 10 non-paint twos. They shot much more than that. So you have to take a look at the process of what we’re trying to accomplish, and we were able to accomplish good results for the most part. And like I said, there’s probably eight to 10 shots that we could be better at, for sure.”