Boston Celtics vs New York Knicks Picks and Predictions October 22nd 2024

New-look Knicks Out to Spoil Boston’s Latest Banner Raising

The Boston Celtics will face the visiting New York Knicks on Tuesday to kick off their quest for a second consecutive NBA championship.

In five games, Boston won the 2023-24 championship over Dallas. Since 1967-68 and 1968-69, the Celtics have not won a championship in a row.

“We want to win a championship every single year — that’s the goal, that’s the standard, that’s the expectation,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Just because something worked before doesn’t mean it’s going to work again. That’s the challenge.”

The Celtics return their top 11 scorers from last year’s team, which had an NBA-best 64-18 record in the regular season and then went 16-3 in the playoffs en route to the franchise’s 18th championship.

Knicks’ New Faces and Ambitions

The Knicks dominated 50 matches in the standard season a year prior and procured the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference yet missed the mark against Indiana in Game 7 of the conference semifinals. New York hasn’t arrived at the conference finals starting around 2000 and hasn’t come out on top for a NBA championship starting around 1973.

New York made some critical offseason moves, one of which was sending forward Julius Randle and watch Donte DiVincenzo to Minnesota in return for forward Karl-Anthony Towns. New York additionally procured Mikal Scaffolds from the Brooklyn Nets.

“We can’t simply be worried over one team,” Towns said. “We must be worried over the entire Eastern Conference. To achieve what we need to do, and what the city is longing for us to do, we should be a team that beats Boston, yet figures out how to overtake each team in the East.”

Bridges will join Jalen Brunson in the Knicks’ backcourt. Brunson finished fifth in MVP voting last season, when he averaged 28.7 points per game during his first All-Star season.

Key Players Missing for Season Opener

Boston is led by five-time All-Star Jayson Tatum, who averaged 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.9 assists in 74 games last season.

New York community Precious Achiuwa won’t be accessible Tuesday due to a strained left hamstring. The team declared that he will be re-evaluated in two to four weeks. Achiuwa was injured during Friday’s preseason game against Washington.

New York will likewise be without focus Mitchell Robinson, who is recovering from two ankle surgeries he went through in the last year. As indicated by ESPN, Robinson may not be available until January.

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Boston center Kristaps Porzingis had a medical procedure on his left leg in late June and is supposed to miss basically the initial two months of the season. The Celtics were 21-4 without Porzingis in the setup last season, when he averaged 20.1 points in 57 games. He spent his first three seasons in the NBA with the Knicks.

“Do we have great talent? Yes,” Mazzulla said. “Do we have great players? Yes. Do we have a great foundation? Yes. Is this ’24-25 team great yet? No, because we haven’t been in a game. It just takes time and every season is different and assuming that you’re just going to … what’d we say before? Doing this in the past doesn’t necessarily mean this is going to work now.”