GREEN WITH ENVY
Celtics next big hurdle Knicks need to clear
T
HERE comes a point in the evolution of a hopeful champion when it should start worrying more about the competition.
If it weren’t for Michael Jordan, for instance, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone and Charles Barkley would have a ring — or at least a couple more Finals appearances. If it weren’t for the Warriors, James Harden’s Rockets wouldn’t be such a disappointment.
If it weren’t for LeBron James, Tom Thibodeau might still be in Chicago and DeMar DeRozan in Toronto. If it weren’t for Kobe and Shaq, we’re looking differently at the Sacramento Kings.
Which brings us to the presentday Celtics.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have been circling an NBA championship so long you forget they’re only in their mid-20s.
To put that into a local perspective, they’re both younger than Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle and Josh Hart. They’re at roughly the same ages as Steph Curry and LeBron when they won their first titles. Barring wandering eyes or injuries, Tatum and Brown aren’t leaving the Atlantic Division for a while. That’s a problem for the Knicks. There’s a valid argument to declare Thibodeau’s squad as second-best in the East. It was No. 2 in wins this season despite all the injuries, which included Randle missing roughly half the regular season and all of the playoffs. It has a star in Brunson. It has chemistry and synergy.
That’s a great place to dwell for the Knicks after two-plus decades of mostly misery. But again, it’s not better than the Celtics, who easily own the East’s best lineup and need four wins against the Mavericks to shed their choker label.
“They have all the right pieces,” Kendrick Perkins, the former Celtic and current ESPN analyst, said in a conference call. “Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, to me, are under the most pressure as far as players out of any other player in the NBA because of the great job that the front office has done as far as making sure they have the necessary pieces around them to complete the mission, and [merely] making it to the Finals is unacceptable.
“That’s what I was taught from playing in Boston for 8 ¹/₂ years. It’s either hanging a banner or it’s nothing. So, making a run to the Finals and not completing the mission, that’s not the standard in the city of champions when it comes down to Boston.”
It’s a bar the Knicks will ultimately have to clear because the underdog, feel-good story has an expiration date. The Timberwolves, for instance, recognized their biggest problem — the Nuggets — and constructed a roster to solve it. The strategy sort of worked. They beat Denver in the second round but were handled fairly easily by Dallas in the conference finals.
One opportunity Knicks team president Leon Rose missed last year was pushing harder for Jrue Holiday, the glue guy and consummate pro. The package Boston sent to the Trail Blazers (Malcolm Brogdon, Robert Williams III and a first-round pick) was hardly prohibitive, and Holiday is a perfect fit anywhere in the same way as OG Anunoby.
Now he’s contractually locked up until 2028 with the Celtics, who went 4-1 against the Knicks last season.
“[Holiday is] in my top-five for best teammates,” said Perkins, who played with Holiday in New Orleans after seasons alongside Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. “He don’t say much, but he holds you accountable by the way he approaches every day as far as his professionalism. He’s going to attack the weight room. He’s going to get his work in on the court. He’s going to practice hard. He’s going to get treatment. He’s not going to be a cancer. Even when things are not going well for him, he’s always bought in.
“One of the great individuals I’ve ever been around, played with, and he’s never — he’s always uplifting.”
A veteran boosting Boston’s championship aspirations wouldn’t concern the Knicks in previous seasons. They weren’t in a position to care about what other teams did. But their house is in order thanks to Rose, Thibs and Brunson.
So it’s time to start concerning themselves more with what’s beyond the front lawn. Or, more specifically, watch the NBA Finals this week with the following question in mind, no matter how impossible it seems to arrive at a realistic answer:
How can we beat that team in green?