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Celtics 84, Knicks 75 | End of 3
By Amin Touri
Jalen Brunson has come alive, and the Knicks are back in it.
Brunson scores 7 quick points, with OG Anunoby and Josh Hart pitching in, to pull New York within 6, but Al Horford drills a 3-point in the final seconds of the third to give Boston a 9-point lead heading into the fourth.
The Celtics lead, 84-75, with one quarter to play in Game 1. Jayson Tatum is doing it all with 19 points, 13 rebounds, and 5 assists (all game highs for either team).
By Amin Touri
The Knicks finally show a little life, piecing together a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 11 points as Joe Mazzulla needs a timeout. The Celtics lead, 75-64, with 3:39 to go in the third.
By Amin Touri
The Celtics are on a run, and the Knicks need a timeout.
Karl-Anthony Towns picks up his fourth foul, Derrick White hits a 3-pointer, Towns goes flailing to the basket with no success, and Al Horford gets out in transition for a dunk to stretch Boston’s lead to 20.
It’s 72-52 midway through the third quarter with New York showing little fight coming out of halftime.
By Amin Touri
Perhaps an explanation for Kristaps Porzingis’s early struggles: The Celtics say the big man is questionable to return with a non-Covid illness. Porzingis struggled for the first half and isn’t on the bench for the second half.
By Amin Touri
The Celtics come out for the second half with Al Horford at center instead of Kristaps Porzingis after a rough first half for the Latvian. Porzingis was held without a point, going 0 for 4 and snagging four rebounds (all offensive, a couple of them from his own missed layups).
Celtics 61, Knicks 45 | Halftime
By Amin Touri
A late flurry from Jaylen Brown gives the Celtics their biggest lead of the night, with Boston taking a 61-45 lead into halftime.
It’s not the prettiest game you’ll ever see, between all the free throws (39 between the two teams), Hack-a-Shaq tactics, and missed 3-pointers (the teams are 10 of 37 combined), but they don’t have to be pretty. Jayson Tatum had a scoreless second quarter after a 13-point first, pushing Brown (14 points) to the forefront as Boston’s leading scorer.
If the goal for Boston was to slow down Jalen Brunson, it’s working — he has just 9 points at the break.
By Amin Touri
The Celtics are just going full Hack-a-Shaq on Mitchell Robinson, daring the Knicks’ backup center — a 52.2 percent free throw shooter for his career — to make his foul shots while Karl-Anthony Towns is on the bench with three fouls.
Robinson is 2 of 8 from the line, and he committed an intentional foul himself just so he could check out of the game.
The Celtics lead, 50-42, with 3:27 to go in the half.
By Amin Touri
Bit of confusion on that last call.
With Jalen Brunson driving to the basket in semi-transition, Payton Pritchard intentionally fouled Mitchell Robinson away from the ball, and the referees whistled for a foul on the floor before Brunson could get to the basket for a layup. They reviewed for a clear-path foul but determined that Al Horford was close enough to negate any clear-path foul possibility, putting Robinson on the line for two shots. He missed them both; it paid off for Pritchard and the Celtics.
By Amin Touri
You know when your youth basketball coach would make your team run laps for every free throw the team missed after a loss? Tom Thibodeau might have to do that after this one. The Knicks are an appalling 6 of 13 from the free throw line thus far, with the Celtics leading, 40-38, and 7:23 to play in the first half.
Celtics 26, Knicks 25 | End of 1Q
By Amin Touri
One quarter is in the books here at TD Garden and the Celtics lead, 26-25, after Karl-Anthony Towns is too late on a transition dunk in the final seconds.
Jayson Tatum still leads all scorers with 13 points. It’s been a tough start for the Celtics around the basket; aside from a dunk each from Jayson Tatum and Luke Kornet, Boston is 0 for 5 in the paint.
Something to keep an eye on: Kornet picked up three quick fouls late in the first, which may limit his minutes in relief of Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford.
By Amin Touri
Luke Kornet throws down a putback dunk, giving the TD Garden crowd a chance to answer the oft-asked question: What does it sound like when 20,000 people start barking like dogs?
The Celtics went big for much of this first quarter, pairing two bigs (Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis) with Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum on the wings, which is just about the biggest lineup Boston can run with its regular playoff rotation players. Tatum is shouldering much of the scoring load — he has a game-high 13 points as Boston leads, 21-20, with 2:07 left in the first.
By Amin Touri
No surprises with the Celtics offensive game plan early on: Boston is hunting Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns early and often, looking to attack New York’s two weak links on defense.
Already some frustration rising to the surface for the Knicks — Brunson, Towns, and Josh Hart have all made their displeasure known to the referees already, with Hart getting plenty of sarcastic cheers from the TD Garden crowd as he left the game.
A transition dunk from Tatum drew the biggest pop of the night thus far. This building is already bouncing with Boston leading, 14-11, midway through the first.
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals is underway here at TD Garden. Check back up live updates throughout the contest.
Celtics fans in attendance at tonight’s game arrived to find T-shirts on their seats that say “Stay in the fight.” But at this point, it seems like more fans are opting to keep their green-and-white attire, rather than covering it with a black shirt.
Commentary by Shirley Leung
Private equity firms are better known for chasing profits, not championships — so why does a private equity firm want to buy a piece of the Celtics?
Sixth Street, a San Francisco-based PE shop with more than $100 billion in assets under management, is part of the winning bid led by Bill Chisholm, a North Shore native and cofounder of California private equity firm Symphony Technology Group. Sixth Street has committed over $1 billion to the $6.1 billion purchase, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Private equity firms want in on pro sports because they believe they’re recession-proof and can offer a huge return on investment, especially as leagues ink lucrative media rights deals with streaming services. Those deals can drive a team’s value ever upward.
But the social capital that comes with ownership — well, that’s priceless.
By Adam Himmelsbach
The Celtics are elite at finding a mismatch and relentlessly hunting it. Most teams have one obvious target on the floor at a time, but the Knicks are a rare team that will start the game with two in star players Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Celtics will look to hunt switches involving Brunson to get him in isolation, and he simply doesn’t have the size or speed to really battle Boston’s elite scorers.
Towns is more susceptible in pick-and-roll actions. When he sags into drop coverage, the Celtics will make him pay by spraying jump shots. Closer to the hoop, he plays below the rim.
The conundrum for the Knicks is both are such elite offensive players, and coach Tom Thibodeau leans so heavily on his starters, they will be on the court for most of the game.
Thibodeau will have to seek creative ways to protect and hide these two defensive liabilities, but it won’t be easy.
Read more keys to the series here.
Gary Washburn | On Basketball
Boston averaged 125 points per game and made an average of 21 3-pointers in four meetings against the Knicks this season. This isn’t Orlando. The Knicks don’t have the personnel to limit the Celtics from the 3-point line. And they didn’t have an answer for Jayson Tatum, who averaged 33.5 points and made 47.8 percent of his 3-point attempts in the season series.
OG Anunoby is a physical defender who, in his Toronto days, has given Tatum trouble, but Anunoby was ineffective against Tatum recently. Mikal Bridges is a lengthy defender but lacks the bulk and physicality to check Tatum or Brown. The Knicks sacrificed five first-round picks to acquire Bridges with this matchup in mind.
Last season, the Knicks appeared headed for an Eastern Conference finals matchup with the Celtics before losing the final two games of their series with the Indiana Pacers, including Game 7 at home. The difference this season is the Knicks are completely healthy and Jalen Brunson has become the unquestioned leader with Karl-Anthony Towns becoming the second option.
By Julian Benbow
Jalen Brunson has one of the most effective floaters in the NBA.
He scored 40 points Thursday night in the Knicks’ Game 6 closeout win over the Pistons. None of his buckets was bigger than the pull-up 3-pointer that sent Detroit’s best defender, Ausar Thompson, stumbling one way while Brunson darted the other to seal the Pistons’ fate.
But when the Knicks built their early lead, the floater was the tool Brunson reached for. And when they were in a hole late in the fourth quarter, the NBA’s clutch player of the year went to it in a clutch moment, attacking Dennis Schröder, absorbing contact, and lofting a floater high off the glass to get the bucket and the foul. The shot jump-started an 11-1 run over the last 2:23 that sent the Knicks to the second round to face the Celtics.
Brunson made 149 of 277 floater attempts during the regular season. The 53.8 shooting percentage made it his most effective shot besides a driving layup. The only players who took more floaters during the regular season were Trae Young (180 of 380), Jaren Jackson Jr. (176 of 342), and Dyson Daniels (142 of 290).
But against the Celtics, Brunson’s pet shot goes missing. Dive into the numbers.
By Conor Roche, Boston.com Staff
Arguably the two best cities for professional sports in North America will see their teams go head-to-head in the postseason again.
The Celtics and Knicks will meet up in the Eastern Conference semifinals, marking the first time in 41 years that two of the NBA’s most storied franchises will play in the playoffs beyond the first round. It also marks the 16th time that the two teams will meet in the postseason.
Ahead of Monday’s Game 1, let’s look at some of the most memorable playoff battles between Boston and New York across the four major professional sports leagues over the years — from the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals to the 2004 ALCS to Super Bowl XLVI (hey, we didn’t say all of them were good).
Garden Party is a daily-ish newsletter serving up everything you need to know about the Celtics’ 2025 playoff run — plus some intel that might surprise you.
Get updates on what happened last night, what’s happening tonight, and what everyone in Boston sports is talking about right now. Stay in-the-know with exclusive insights from reporters, analysts — and some famous faces. And if you aren’t lucky enough to score tickets, find out how to join in on the action as playoff fever takes over Boston.
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Emma can be reached at [email protected] or on X @_EmmaHealy_. Amin Touri can be reached at [email protected].
