On April 12, Beijing time, the Celtics played at home against the Knicks, and the Celtics lost to the Knicks 109-118 at the end of the game. Although the current Celtics no longer have the pressure on the record, after all, they have locked the first position in the East early, but the current Celtics are still in a full lineup, so it is still difficult for the Knicks to win this game, but what people didn't expect is that the Celtics in this game can still play difficult with the Knicks in the first quarter of the game, and in the second quarter of the game, the Knicks opened the score, and in the third quarter of the game, the Knicks directly collapsed the Celtics, if it was not for the bench lineup to chase points in the fourth quarter of the game, then the Celtics would suffer a big rout in this game。
In terms of hard power, the Celtics are definitely stronger than the Knicks, not to mention that the current Knicks are missing Randle, but in this game, the Celtics just have no way to limit Brunson's play, and the Celtics are strictly defensive against Brunson in the game, but Brunson is still able to continue to score, not to mention that the Knicks also have strange soldiers like Hart and DiVincenzo, and Bojan also had a good performance in the game, so the Celtics were directly defeated. Although the loss of such a game by the Celtics did not have much impact, it was undoubtedly disappointing to suffer such a heavy defeat at the beginning and end of the regular season when the Celtics had a full starting lineup.
After this game, the Celtics achieved a 62-18 record, and it can be said that the Celtics played such a record in the regular season is good enough, but the Celtics are still not favored to win the championship, in which O'Neal talked about the Celtics on his podcast. Host: Which team is one that people always say will win the championship but you don't think it is? O'Neal: Celtic, people overrate them. Host: But the Celtics are the best team in the league. O'Neal: It doesn't convince me that I've been in the league for so many years, I've seen a lot of players who were really good in the regular season, but they didn't win championships. Although O'Neal knew that Celtic had a good record, O'Neal did not believe that such a Celtic could win the championship.
And O'Neal is not surprising that he looks down on the Celtics like this, after all, the Celtics' performance in the game is not convincing, this season's Celtics are very dependent on three-point shooting, this season's Celtics average 42.6 three-point shots per game rank first in the league, and the average of 16.5 three-point shots per game also ranks first in the league, it can be said that when the Celtics come up with an extremely good outside shooting touch, then the Celtics can win the game, but when the Celtics outside three-point slump, then the Celtics' chances of winning will be greatly reduced, it can be said that as a team that wants to compete for the championship, The Celtics obviously have very few ways to win, just like in the game against the Knicks, when the Celtics' outside three-point offense was sluggish, the Knicks directly seized the opportunity to open the score.
At the same time, the offensive core of the Celtics is not convincing, just like in this game, Tatum and Brown are in a bad offensive state in the game, Tatum is 1 of 7 three-pointers at the end of the game, Brown is 1 of 5 three-pointers, and finally Tatum's plus-minus value -30 is ranked first in the team, Brown's plus-minus value -29 is ranked second-to-last in the team, as the core of the team, such a performance is obviously unqualified, and more importantly, it can be said that the offensive state of the two is unstable in this game, so it is understandable that the offensive crotch pulling, but in fact, Tatum, the core of the Celtics, performed poorly at critical momentsAccording to the data, Tatum was only able to score 2.9 points at the critical moment and ranked 17th in the league, of which there were 29 games at the critical moment, Tatum achieved a record of 18 wins and 11 losses.