3 Reasons Why Knicks Can't Totally Overlook the Celtics This Season

Last spring, the Celtics were, in many people’s eyes, the favorites to win the Eastern Conference. Fast forward to now, and the Celtics have just the third-best title odds in the Atlantic Division.

The message from Vegas oddsmakers is clear: the C's are has-beens. The message for the Knicks is just as clear: don’t believe the hype.

However, few in American sports have ever won as much, recently or all-time, as the Celtics. Despite the risks inherent in trading a 29-year-old Jaylen Brown, who’s played 2,000+ minutes for six straight years, for a 37-year-old Paul George, who’s done so once in seven, one assumes Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzulla didn’t lose Brown in a game of poker. They chose to move on.

That’s not the same as passing on peacefully—especially since one result of all their dealing is that Boston, now under the luxury tax, is free for three years from the dreaded repeater tax, an exponential penalty for teams over the tax line three years out of four.

Just because the title-favorite Celtics are but a memory doesn’t mean the 2026-27 C's aren’t a cause for concern. The Knicks can’t afford to underestimate them. Here are three reasons why.

1. They didn’t trade Bill Russell

“Contentment is the greatest wealth,” said the Buddha. Unlike Brown, the Buddha never signed contracts worth over $400 million before turning 30, so we’ll have to take him at his word. Yet despite all the financial rewards and on-court accolades,

Brown’s ascension to alpha status while Jayson Tatum missed most of the season recovering from a torn Achilles did not exactly give off a vibe of “contentment.” And that’s not only okay, but it’s also probably good. That may have helped Brown better handle the role he played in 2026; the same vibe could lift Tatum to new heights in 2027.

Brown got some heat for calling last season the most fun he’s had in his NBA career, something you have to be intolerably dull not to grasp. There are zero kids today shooting hoops in a park or a gym or their driveway, imagining one day they’ll reach the pros and win a championship... as a second banana.

Scottie Pippen didn’t grow up dreaming of playing second fiddle to Michael Jordan. Shaquille O’Neal was the league’s most unstoppable force and immovable object when Kobe Bryant forced him out of L.A. So not only was Brown’s appetite for more understandable, it’s healthy.

Tatum—news flash—is better than Brown. In his first couple of years in the league, the Celtics were mostly directed by Kyrie Irving, but ever since it’s been Tatum, then Brown, then everybody else. He fought back after his Achilles tear to return from the injury in record time, only to have to sit out Boston’s Game 7 loss to the Sixers with knee stiffness.

Tatum’s coming off the first offseason he could devote to playing rather than rehabbing in years. And he’s spent most of this offseason pretty quiet while Brown tells the world the two haven’t spoken since the trade.

Whatever Tatum is feeling this season, contentment probably ain’t it. That’s great news for the Celtics. Not so much for their rivals. Tatum is back, and he and his side probably feel overlooked. They’ll have something to prove—particularly against New York. Brown rode a sense of being slighted to a career year. If Tatum does the same, watch out.

2. Mitchell Robinson matters

When Boston last won the title, they featured three centers who could defend the paint and make three on the other end. They didn’t ask the latter of Luke Kornet, but Knicks fans know he can handle them.

Since then, the Celtics have watched Kornet, Kristaps Porziņģis and Al Horford depart. The C's rose to glory with a rotation that ran top to bottom with two-way players, leaving opponents no obvious line of attack. Have they suddenly lost touch with the league? Maybe not.

Mazzulla is good friends with the great soccer manager Pep Guardiola; the two have talked strategy in the past. Guardiola’s greatest teams dominated possession, overwhelming opponents with a million passes and simple math: if you don’t have the ball, you can’t score; if you can’t score, you can’t win.

But in recent years the Premier League has adjusted, moving more toward reliance on physicality, corner kicks and throw-ins. Guardiola’s final season at Manchester City saw him bed in a new kind of roster, one more suited to how the game is played. What some saw as a club that dominated for a decade taking a step down was really them re-balancing before taking off again.

Could it be the same for Boston? The Knicks were basically designed by Leon Rose to beat the Tatum-Brown Celtics, doing so with only one big man who can space the floor. Maybe Mazzulla picked up on something over the past few years, watching (relatively) big, strong sides like Oklahoma City and New York win titles with Isaiah Hartenstein and Robinson, two fives who never shoot from outside. In 583 combined games, Mitch and Neemias Queta have made one three-pointer.

But Boston didn’t sign Robinson for the things he can’t do. Last year he ranked in the 98th percentile among bigs for steals and 96th in deflections; he’s been 96th or better at both three years running. Pop quiz: who was the best defensive center the Knicks faced in the Eastern playoffs? Onyeka Okongwu? The last will and testament of Joel Embiid? Jarrett Allen? Robinson laps them all defensively. Not even close.

Then, of course, there’s the offense, i.e., the rebounds. If Robinson is healthy next year (a big if), a whole lotta possessions that, once upon a time, went to Boston’s opponents will now become second, third and fourth chances for the Celtics to score.

Don’t overlook Queta in that regard; he was ninth in the Association in offensive rebounds. The Celtics may have given up on having bigs beyond the arc, but having Robinson and Queta crash the glass surely does more good than having Nikola Vučević let fly from deep.

Stevens and Mazzulla are creative minds. If they’re zagging while the rest of the league zigs, the Knicks would do well to pay attention. The Celtics don’t zag without reason. And signing Mitch significantly narrowed the biggest gap between the teams last season: New York’s superiority at the center spot. The Knicks have seen Mitch be the difference-maker in playoff series before. They have to hope they don’t get a front-row view of it again come the playoffs.

3. Plain dumb luck

We’re talking about the Celtics. Leprechauns. Parquet dead spots. Victory cigars. The Hondo steal. The Isiah steal. The team that, right after adding Larry Bird, traded two firsts, including what became the top overall pick in the draft, and somehow walked away with Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. The same C's who were gift-wrapped Kevin Garnett when McHale ran the Timberwolves and did his old buddy Danny Ainge a solid.

The Tatum-Brown Celtics were no less a miracle, born in the wake of Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce Ratner using the Nets' move to Brooklyn to ram through a sweet real estate deal and, eventually, Garnett and Paul Pierce.

So while the Celtics don’t currently appear to have the horses to run the race as well as they have in the past 10 years, rest assured that unbelievable will break in their favor in the next 12-18 months. Even if it doesn’t, consider how good they were a year ago, with Brown as the alpha and no Tatum.

Now Tatum, really for the first time since turning pro, is the C’s undisputed number-one. If he’s healthy, motivated and goes all out this season, you can pencil Boston in for 50 wins and home-court advantage in the first round. If that happens, they could meet New York in the playoffs.

If that happens? Get your popcorn ready.

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