BOS vs NYK, NBA 2020-21
TD Garden, Boston, MA
Sunday, January 17, 2021 11:30 PM
The Celtics still have the pieces to rank within the top five on either end of the ground and finish within the top four within the conference for a fifth straight season. and are available July, they might certainly be the team representing the East within the Finals, especially if the progress of Tatum and Brown continues at its current pace. But with no Hayward and with Walker’s health an issue before the season even starts, they’re a touch more fragile than they were last season, once they were ready to withstand a myriad of absences within their top six.
It’s difficult to see the Knicks ending the Eastern Conference’s longest active playoff drought (seven seasons and counting), though the new play-in scenario offers more hope than usual. More important than the results is that the establishment of an environment during which young players can develop. Because that sort of structure has been absent, we don’t know yet if Barrett or Robinson are future franchise cornerstones or future journeymen, or if the Knicks should cut bait on Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina and Dennis Smith Jr. But subsequent six months are a chance to push those players further, while establishing the Knicks as a competent organization from top to bottom. They only need to look out on the East River to seek out a franchise that rose from a worse position to at least one which established stars wanted to hitch
P Pritchard
J Brown
J Tatum
R Rivers
A Burks
M Robinson
BostonCeltics: W – 4, L – 1
New YorkKnicks: W – 1, L – 4