Celtics vs. Knicks: What we learned from opener as Boston ties 3-point record, Mikal Bridges raises questions

The 2024-25 season picked up right where the 2023-24 season left off: With a Celtics victory

The 2024-25 NBA season picked up right where the 2023-24 season left off: With a dominant performance by the Boston Celtics. The reigning champion Celtics crushed the new-look New York Knicks, 132-109, Tuesday night in the first game of the new season. Boston tied an NBA record by making 29 3-pointers in the blowout win. The Celtics had a chance to break the record — which was previously set by the Bucks in December 2020 — but the team missed its last 13 3-point attempts.

Jayson Tatum led the way with 37 points, hitting 14 of his 18 field-goal attempts and eight of his 11 3s. Six Celtics scored in double figures, including all the starters, and seven different Boston players hit at least one 3-pointer after they got their championship rings in a pregame ceremony. Boston finished shooting 29 for 61 on 3s (47.5%) and shot 60.4% on triples before the late-game cold streak that came mostly from bench players.

It was a forgettable opener for the Knicks, who saw Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges make their team debuts after coming over in separate blockbuster trades this offseason. Towns had 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting (and only took two 3-pointers). Bridges ended with 16 points, but he had a shaky start as he continues to work through shooting woes. Jalen Brunson and sixth man Deuce McBride both had a team-high 22 points in the loss.

Here are three things we learned from Boston’s season-opening win.

1. Bad start for Bridges (with a silver lining)

The Celtics opened the game with Al Horford defending Josh Hart. That’s a tad unconventional by traditional NBA standards. Horford is a center. Hart is a wing. But this has become a more common strategy in the modern league as more and more teams have developed shooting big men. Stick the center on the poor shooter so he can provide help elsewhere. Hart, on paper, is the worst Knicks shooter, so the Celtics largely had Horford defend him early.

By the second quarter, they’d pivoted. Both Horford and Luke Kornet spent possessions guarding Bridges even with Hart on the floor. The Celtics made the determination, in the middle of a game, that Bridges, with an unexplainable change to his release, was the least threatening Knick. Sure enough, he shot 0-for-4 from 3-point range in the first half. After shooting 2-for-19 in the preseason, Knicks fans were justifiably terrified. They’d just spent five first-round picks on a shooter with a bizarre hitch in his release.

Fortunately for New York, Bridges pulled himself together in the second half. He made two of his three triples in the third quarter, but notably, he also made all five of his six 2-pointers in the second half. When Bridges was standing behind the arc serving as a spacer for others, he had time to think, and it affected his release. When the Knicks worked him into the offense and gave him more room to create, his release looked a bit more natural. Granted, it still didn’t look great. This is going to be an ongoing concern for New York. But the key for New York might simply be keeping him in a rhythm. Bridges looks more comfortable shooting 3s when he’s also taking 2s.

2. The Celtics are going to let it fly

Last season, Joe Mazzulla called 3-point attempt rate the most important stat in modern basketball. Sure enough, the Celtics led the league as 47.1% of their field goals came from behind the arc. Well, the Celtics pushed those boundaries even further on Tuesday. It’s only a one-game sample, but 64.2% of Boston’s shots came from deep. That aggressive triple-hunting helped them tie the NBA record by making 29 3-pointers in the game as a whole.

We should note here that this game, in itself, was a bit of a perfect storm. The Knicks had a bizarre game-plan that included minimal switching and quite a bit of helping onto ball-handlers. Their style helped make Boston’s barrage possible, but even when you get this many open 3s, you don’t always make them. Opposing defenses will be better. The Celtics won’t be quite as lucky. This was an outlier even by Boston’s standards.

But Boston’s historic shooting night was about more than the ones they made. Their volume was perhaps more indicative of what is to come. The Celtics set a team record with 61 3-point attempts, which also ties for the fifth-most any team has ever attempted in a game. At this stage, it’s reasonable to guess that the Celtics are going to keep pushing the envelope from deep and potentially become the first team ever to attempt more 3’s than 2’s in an NBA season.

3. Jayson Tatum is on a revenge tour

No, we’re not going to speculate about the MVP award after the literal first game of the season. If we were going to name an MVP favorite after a single game, though? It’s Jayson Tatum’s award to lose. He opened the season with a near-flawless 37 points on 14-of-18 shooting to go along with 10 assists and his standard, excellent defense. After a postseason in which he made only 28.3% of his triples, he nailed eight on 11 tries in this one.

The Celtics weren’t exactly received like a typical champion this offseason. Much of the discourse surrounded all of the Eastern Conference stars who got hurt during or before matchups against the Celtics, and Team USA’s Olympic run only poured gasoline on the fire. Tatum barely played for Team USA. Jaylen Brown was left off of the gold medal-winning roster entirely. Despite a historic point-differential and one of the best records in league history, the Celtics were emphatically not treated like a typical champion.

It would be hard to deny that they’ve carried that energy into this season with the way they played on opening night. The Knicks were a perfect opponent for such a statement. This is the team that made the flashy moves during the offseason. New York has been widely treated as Boston’s chief rival in the Eastern Conference with its revamped roster. And it had no answer whatsoever for Tatum. He cooked Mikal Bridges one-on-one all night. He hunted Karl-Anthony Towns plenty in pick-and-roll. He was by far the best player on the floor in the season opener, and in the process he set the tone for what could be his best NBA season yet.