Previewing the Knicks’ potential playoff foes — Part 3
The Knicks and Celtics haven’t met in the playoffs with both contenders since 1974. 50 years later, are we in store for a new chapter in the league’s oldest rivalry?
In Part One of this series we looked at the East’s dregs; Part Two was the higher-ups. In this third and final piece, we go all the way up to the penthouse: the Boston Celtics.
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
A lot. For these Celtics, pressure is like an iceberg: what you see is dwarfed by what you don’t. The obvious bit is the pressure to win after adding two All-Stars to their staring lineup and being the league’s best team all year, after winning the most games in a 4/5/6 year span without winning a title than any team in NBA history They haven’t lost three straight this year while putting together six different winning streaks of at least five games. But it’s what’s underneath it all that might carry the greater weight.
The Celtics are counting on this group being the answer. With Jrue Holiday agreeing to a new $135 million extension, their most prominent free agent this summer is Luke Kornet. Both Kristaps Porziņģis and Al Horford’s salaries drop a bit next year, but short of a nightmare spring it’s hard to envision why they’d move KP or what value Horford would bring back, seeing as his contract is no needle-mover. Besides Holiday (33) and Horford (37), the entire rotation is between 25 and 29. Jayson Tatum will sign a max extension someday soon; when he does, he and Jaylen Brown will be making well over $100 million combined. If there isn’t a championship sooner than later, they’ll likely make that money apart from each other.
As if all that weren’t enough, there’s the pressure of history to consider. The past dozen years, Boston has reached six conference finals and lost five. Elimination in the Eastern playoffs would be catastrophic; should they reach the Finals, they’re still not in the clear. The 2008 Celtics remain the franchise’s only champion in the past 37 years. The players don’t think that way, but Boston fans in the winter of their lives long for a spark of the old days; the young tighten and thrash, lustful for a legacy denied them. Split NBA history into two halves and the mighty Celtics find themselves in the same boat as the Raptors and Mavericks of the world. Their only comparable period of struggle? The 1952-53 through 1954-55 seasons, when this was their logo.
Boston lost three straight years in the penultimate round (then the Eastern Division semifinals) to a couple teams from New York – one the Syracuse Nationals, the other one you can guess.