Jayson Tatum answered Boston’s opening-night stumble with the kind of closing stretch TD Garden has come to expect. His 36 points and three late makes carried the Celtics past the defending champion New York Knicks, 107-103, on Friday night, leaving both clubs at 1-1 after the 503rd meeting in the NBA’s most-played rivalry.
New York had trimmed an 11-point fourth-quarter hole to one, but Tatum took over when Boston needed a steady possession. He scored on three consecutive trips in the final 1:24, including a pull-up 3-pointer over Karl-Anthony Towns with 35 seconds remaining that put the Celtics ahead 106-100.
The Knicks had entered Boston trying to avoid an 0-2 start to their championship defense after losing their opener to Philadelphia on banner night at Madison Square Garden. Boston, meanwhile, had let its own opener slip away in Detroit after a Pistons comeback. The urgency showed early in a game that carried a postseason edge despite being only the second night on each team’s schedule.
Tatum finds his rhythm, then closes
Tatum had endured an unusually difficult opener, scoring 13 points on 6-for-23 shooting and missing all seven of his 3-point tries against Detroit. Across his first 602 regular-season appearances, he had only once before taken at least 23 shots while shooting as poorly as 26.1 percent — a 2021 overtime loss to New York in which he still made two 3s.
Friday looked much more familiar. After missing his first attempt from deep, Tatum attacked the rim for his next two baskets and eventually found scoring options all over the floor. He finished 14-for-26, adding seven assists after handing out 11 in the opener. Through two games, he is averaging nine assists.
With Jaylen Brown no longer alongside him, Tatum’s workload as Boston’s central scorer and creator has grown. In the Detroit loss, he repeatedly found Paul George, who scored 38 points in his Celtics debut. Against New York, Tatum balanced that playmaking responsibility with decisive late-game shotmaking.
“A 14-for-26, 36-point line is probably what people expect from him every night,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “I’d bet he produces something close to that most nights. It was a very balanced game from JT at both ends, and you could see his greatness.”
Boston led 95-84 after Neemias Queta completed a three-point play with 8:01 left, nearly matching its largest advantage. New York responded with a 16-5 surge, bringing the margin down to one and threatening to turn another Celtics lead into another loss.
Tatum stopped that push by working Josh Hart in the mid-post and spinning into a 19-foot fadeaway for a three-point lead with 1:24 to play. After Towns was called for an offensive foul, Tatum hit a contested long two from the corner over Hart to make it a five-point game with 49 seconds left.
OG Anunoby made two free throws to cut the deficit to 103-100. On Boston’s next trip, the Knicks switched a screen and left Towns guarding Tatum on the left wing. Tatum used a pump fake, rose from just beyond the arc and drilled the clean 3 that effectively settled the night.
Robinson beats his former club
Mitchell Robinson’s first game against the Knicks came only a little more than four months after his huge offensive rebound helped New York secure Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Now a Celtic after signing in free agency, he made clear before tipoff that there would be no sentiment during the game.
“I love y’all, but tonight we aren’t friends,” Robinson said before facing his old team.
He scored less than three minutes into the game on a pick-and-roll layup with Tatum, then supplied his other basket during a fourth-quarter sequence that energized the building. Robinson emphatically rejected a Towns layup, ran the floor and finished a one-handed alley-oop 21 seconds later.
Foul trouble limited Robinson to 22 minutes, but he contributed four points, four rebounds, two assists and one block in his first win as a Celtic.
“I’ve seen JT do that,” Robinson said of Tatum’s late shotmaking. “To be on the same side and see it as his teammate was mind-blowing.”
The competitive edge did not carry past the final horn, with Robinson and his former Knicks teammates sharing warm moments after the game.
New York returns home seeking its first win
The Knicks are the first reigning NBA champion to start 0-2 since the 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks. Their two defeats have come against projected Eastern Conference contenders — Philadelphia and Boston — by a combined 10 points.
New York had not entered a season as defending champion in 53 years. The franchise’s previous title came in 1973, while Boston has added seven of its NBA-record 18 championships since then.
There is little reason for the Knicks to treat two close losses as a long-term alarm. League general managers projected New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Boston as the East’s four leading teams, and the Knicks opened against two of them. Still, the contrast is notable after last season’s defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder began 8-0 and did not take its second loss until Game 27.
New York will try to break through Sunday when it hosts the Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden. A priority will be getting Mikal Bridges going after he went scoreless in Boston and opened the season 2-for-16 from the field.
“He’s getting the looks he needs,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “Now he just has to make them.”
