In this, the Age of No Good Reason, it made for twisted logic:

The Celtics, last year’s champs, who recently sold for $6.1 billion, began their playoff round with the Knicks as heavy favorites. That’s how well and often they shoot 3s in a league that has sacrificed righteous basketball to emulate a video game that would be rated IEE — for immature, easily entertained audiences.

But the Boston crowd, a generation or two removed from Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, Dave Cowens, John Havlicek and Dennis Johnson, seemed at least as excited by the Celts’ one-trick teams as those that first defined pro basketball as worthy of our time, money and full attention.

And so, in Games 1 and 2, both at home vs. the Knicks, the Celtics — a professional, exorbitantly paid team — played without a Plan B.