They are professionals. They don’t require the kind of basic motivation college coaches preach to their players. They aren’t susceptible to the emotional manipulation that high school coaches project on their players. They are pros. It’s their job. It’s their lives. It’s their livelihoods.
So Tom Thibodeau knows better than to hammer home that which will be impossible to miss Tuesday night, at the TD Garden. The Celtics will raise an 18th championship banner to the Garden’s already crowded rafters. The Knicks are welcome to watch.
There will be one final ode to the 2023-24 C’s, and it promises to be loud enough and long enough to extend all across New England, so it can be properly shared with an audience far beyond the 19,156 who’ll be packed tightly within the arena walls. The Celtics never did have to tame the Knicks to win that title, but it’ll be the Knicks who’ll fully experience the spoils of what the Celtics did.
How will that affect the Knicks on Tuesday, as they begin their quest to achieve what the Celtics have already earned?
Well, hell, you’ve seen Thibodeau’s basketball floor plans for four years now. You know his greatest hits by heart. How do you think the Knicks will react and respond?
You know how they’ll react and respond.
“To me, situations like that happen all the time, whether it’s a ring ceremony, honoring a team or a player,” Thibodeau said Monday, a day before Knicks/Celtics tips off the season in Boston. “It’s all part of the league. And the thing I want them to remember: Don’t get distracted. For us, I want our players sticking to their routine. If you get caught up in the hoopla … what’s really important is being ready to play. That’s the important thing.”
Don’t misunderstand: what follows after the pomp and circumstance will be considerably relevant. The Knicks want what the Celtics have, and in order to take it away, they’ll have to learn how to beat them across the next seven or eight months.
Yes, they’ll also have to become proficient at beating the Bucks, Cavaliers, 76ers, Heat, Pacers …
But the Celtics are the gold standard right now. They are the defending champs.
“The first one’s a real game, too,” Mikal Bridges said Monday, meaning zero disrespect to the scads of less interesting opponents scattered on every team’s schedule, simply understanding what the Knicks will be in for Tuesday. “The energy is going to be crazy.”
So is the gauntlet the Knicks are facing in the season’s first weeks, a bear of a 10-game opening lap that includes seven games away from the Garden. The only three at home are against teams almost certain to be in the postseason: Pacers, Cavs, Bucks.
The Knicks are still in the early phases of breaking in new sneakers. Some days, the mix of old and new is comfortable enough that you feel you could run a marathon in them. Some days, your feet are so swollen you feel like you’ll need to cut them off. So if we reach Nov. 13 and the Knicks are bringing a record like 4-6 — or worse — with them to the Garden to face the Bulls, know that it is possible.
Know that two-fifths of their starting rotation — Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns — have yet to play a real minute as Knicks. Know that the player who was supposed to at least care for the cavity left behind by Isaiah Hartenstein (Precious Achiuwa) may well be out until near Thanksgiving. And know that Thibodeau’s credo, across every one of his 13 seasons as a head coach, has never seemed more applicable:
Be playing your best basketball by the end of the season.
That might make for some growing pains. And the exiled old reliables — Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo — may well be badly missed in the short term.
But you will also have the joy of watching the already hard-to-defend Jalen Brunson/KAT pick-and-roll blossom into something beautiful every game. You’ll still have OG Anunoby and the hundred and one ways he can help win games for (knock wood) a whole season. You’ll still have Bridges and Josh Hart and Deuce McBride. You’ll still have the daily quest to get better, to build chemistry.
A year ago, the Knicks were asked to measure themselves right away against the Celtics, and they were nearly run out of the gym after a quarter, 30-18. That was a different Knicks team than the one that seized the city’s attention by spring. But it was also a different Celtics team, still seeking that 18th banner. It was still a good opening gauge.
It’s a better one this year. Once the banner is up, once the retrospectives are over, that’s when the season really begins, the kind of season with the kind of expectations the Knicks haven’t really had in 30 years.
“We have a chance to play great basketball; we have a chance to start things off right,” said Towns before adding — perhaps inspired by the Yankees cap on his head: “The whole team is working tremendously hard to make the city proud.”
Boston will be the proud basketball city Tuesday night. Starting then, applications will be accepted and reviewed for cities wishing to mount that clam come June. The Knicks will throw their hats in the ring and take their chances from there.
