The Celtics and Knicks took care of business in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, and are set for another exciting Boston versus New York clash in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. The Knicks finished off the Pistons in dramatic fashion on the road in Game 6 on Thursday night, thanks to a Jalen Brunson game-winner. The Celtics closed out the Magic in Boston in Game 5 on Tuesday, and while they were a bit dinged up in the series, Game 1 against New York isn’t until Monday night, giving plenty of time for some rest.
While the Knicks are a clear talent upgrade over Orlando, I’m not convinced the Magic aren’t the worse matchup for the C’s. The Magic present some size and physicality that’s given Boston issues at times, and we’ve seen it result in some regular season success. While the Celtics still closed the series out in five games, the Magic did one thing particularly well to limit the defending champions — take away the three point line.
The Celtics season-low in attempts from downtown in the regular season was 33, which happened to come against Orlando. In their five-game playoff series, the Magic held the Celtics to 31 or fewer attempts from beyond the arc in three of the games — and the other two games Boston attempted exactly 37 triples (still more than 10 below its season average). It was the best Orlando could do to try and close the gap and give itself a chance, but the Celtics’ talent still found ways to prevail.
While the Knicks clearly will bring more offense to the table than the Magic did, they’ve shown nothing that should make us think the Celtics won’t get a high volume of quality looks from three in this series. The Pistons, who ranked 23rd in the NBA in three point attempts per game, shot just over 31 triples per game throughout the six game series against New York, hitting at a 32.5% clip. And that was enough for a very competitive six-game series where every game went down to the wire.
The Celtics, who led the NBA with over 47 attempts from downtown during the regular season, were even better when facing the Knicks this season. During four matchups, Boston was just over its season average, putting up 48.3 attempts from deep against New York. However, the Knicks really struggled to defend the line in terms of quality attempts, evident by the C’s knocking down an absurd 43.5% of their looks. The Celtics made at least 17 three pointers in all four matchups against the Knicks this season, a number they failed to reach once in their five-game series against Orlando.
The Knicks are a scrappy team with the ability to beat Boston if they are on one night and the Celtics have an off night shooting, but we haven’t seen that happen anytime recently. Excluding a game in April of 2024 when the Celtics sat their starters, the Celts have taken eight in a row from New York. This is just a bad matchup for the Knicks, and unless they really adjust their three point defense, New York is in for a frustrating series.
The Celtics rarely seem to pull away with a sweep, but asking the Knicks to win more than a game in this matchup is a tall order. I’m confident in laying 2.5 games on the series spread with Boston, which should be able to close this out in five games at maximum and advance to another Eastern Conference Finals.
Series Spread Pick: Celtics -2.5 Games (-140) 3-units
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