NEW YORK — The Celtics endured it all the past few days. The defending champions blew two 20-point leads as they stared a 2-0 series deficit to the Knicks right in the face. They collapsed at home twice, allowing all their haters and detractors to come from hiding. Those outsiders pounced at the sign of weakness after being forced to take last year off.
But as Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla pointed out in another social-media-worthy one-liner: “You’ve got to tap into your darkness.” So, the Celtics seemingly did that in that their blowout Game 3 win over the Knicks on Saturday. They didn’t let the past few days bog them down. Instead, they relied on what could be their greatest strength: their wealth of experience hardened by enduring the darker times.
“If you plan on doing this for a long time, trust me, it’ll be a lot worse than the last 72 hours,” Mazzulla said. “And that’s the perspective you have to have. At the end of the day, we have the test in front of us, and I have a group of guys that I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to go through that. This is the fun part. I didn’t get into the journey for it to be easy. It’s been dark, but in a good way.”
Before the Celtics won the 2024 title, this current core only knew heartbreak. The side effect of consistent East Finals appearances — for as impressive as that is — is losing on that stage. So even if the Celtics made it that far, when they lost, the end result was an outpouring of criticism.
That’s the darkness and then some. He heard the doubts in his first year after the dispiriting 2023 East Finals; so did Jaylen Brown that series. Jayson Tatum heard it all after the 2022 NBA Finals. So a 2-0 series deficit to the Knicks, where the Celtics still have their shot to make up for it, is relatively a lot easier. At the very least, like they did in Game 3, they can actually have a say in reforming the narrative.
The early parts of that came to fruition Saturday at Madison Square Garden. The C’s shook off their previous shooting struggles, knocking down 50% of their 3-pointers. The lead ballooned to 31 points, and while the Knicks got it down to a 20-point game — that number again — they never truly threatened the final result.
“When adversity hits, people tend to get excited or emotional,” Brown said. “We just gotta stay the course. My job is just to come out and help lead this team to wins. We haven’t been doing that, but I’m very optimistic that next game, and the games to come, we will.”
The Celtics still have a significant amount of work to do. As Brown pointed out, teams need to beat the C’s four times. That’s a tall task. But their margin for error slimmed due to the start of this series. While the Celtics are back to big favorites courtesy of their Game 3 victory, as they saw up-close, it only takes a few stumbles for a game to flip significantly.
But the C’s flexed their might as reigning champions, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt. If any team in the NBA knows what it’s like at the bottom, it’s the Celtics. Sure, they reached the mountaintop last year, but the journey there is also part of their story. And as long as they have a say, just like they did in Game 3, they’ll lean on that playoff experience.
“I know who I am, I know what I’m capable of, I know what I can do and I know what is needed on each possession in order for us to win,” Tatum said. “I’m not trying to prove anything or anything like that. Today was just about making sure that we win, however that looks, whatever is needed. And our team is so talented and well put together, it can look different from night to night.”
