BOSTON —It’s supposed to be harder. Historically, repeating is supposed to be harder than winning.
The year after winning a championship is always supposed to be more challenging. But for the 2024-25 Celtics, there are even more obstacles:
- They had a shorter summer after a deep playoff run.
- Three members of the team — Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holliday and Derrick White —went to Paris for the Olympics. While that wasn’t a heavy lift for any of them basketball-wise, it was another month when they were taxing their bodies instead of resting and healing them after that long season.
- Kristaps Porzingis is out while rehabbing his ankle injury and Al Horford, who was already grizzled by basketball standards, is another year older while coming off that shorter offseason.
- The Celtics spent part of their preseason in Abu Dhabi, which even when flying by charter, isn’t an easy trip.
- They have a target on their back and the teams taking aim should be better or at least healthier than they were five months ago, including the Knicks, who overhauled their lineup for create a rotation better equipped to take on, and perhaps take down the Celtics.
And while 2024-25 probably will be harder than 2023-24 was for the Celtics, it didn’t look that way in Game 1 as they flicked the Knicks off their windshield, 132-109, in the season-opener at TD Garden on Tuesday.
Outside of football, it’s a good time for New York sports. The New York Liberty just won the WNBA title and the Yankees are in the World Series. There’s real Gotham optimism that the Knicks might have done enough to become contenders.
And maybe they will be. But there was no evidence on Tuesday.
There was no emotional hangover from Boston’s pregame ring and banner ceremony. The Celtics exploded out of the gate and hit 10 3-pointers in the first quarter en route to a 43-24 lead and never looked back. They made 29 threes in the game, tying an NBA record.
Jayson Tatum, who struggled shooting the ball in the Finals and played sparingly in the Olympics came out motivated and had 37 points and 10 assists and made 8-of-11 3-pointers. Jaylen Brown looked good in his new signature shoes with 23 points.
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Usually in the NBA, every game gets at least kind of close in the fourth quarter. And the Celtics, as good as they were last year in the playoffs, weren’t great at finishing off a kill. They rarely led by enough to create garbage time and often let teams back into previously comfortable games.
But this one was never competitive. It wasn’t just a knockout, this was a vintage Mike Tyson first-round domination.
The Knicks were never within 15 points after the first quarter. They spent 22 seconds of the third quarter within 20 and never got closer than that again. The Celtics could have dribbled out the clock on each of their possessions of the fourth quarter without shooting. White’s 3-pointer with 1:25 left in the third gave Boston (111), more than New York’s full game total. The margin could have been wider. The Celtics made 29 3-pointers in the game despite shooting 3-for-16 in the final 12 minutes.
Success will be harder than it looked on Tuesday, but the Celtics are chasing it with their heads in the right place.
They aren’t trying to pretend like this is a whole new season and what happened last year doesn’t matter. They have the same team and what happened does matter. The celebration is over, but the lessons are still important.
“I never want our guys to forget what we’ve accomplished in the past. We just can’t stay attached to the result of it,” Joe Mazzulla said. “We have to constantly focus on the intangibles that went into the process of winning and replicate those over and over and over again. And credit to the guys, they did that tonight.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
