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These two teams ended the regular season in completely different trends. The Celtics ended the season losing 11 of their last 16 games, while the Knicks won 14 of their last 16 games, many of them without Tyson Chandler. The Knicks averaged a 119.5 offensive rating in those 16 games, an amazing rating for a team who wants to play half court, with just 8.7 fast break points per game. They had a low number of turnovers with 11.6 per game and they shot really well from the perimeter with 206-508 (40.5%) 3pts. However, Pablo Priogini suffered an ankle injury on the last game of the regular season and he is doubtful for the Game 1 of this series, while Tyson Chandler may also be far from 100% physically due to a neck injury.
On the other hand, the Celtics followed their usual path of not caring about the regular season and resting their key players instead as much as possible. Therefore, it's hard for the public to have a good read on the team. We have a dilemma in checking what's the best Boston's lineup for this series. Should they use Courtney Lee as their starting SG with Brandon Bass or Jeff Green at the PF position, or should they bench Lee and start both Bass and Green? The latter lineup was the one used in the final two games of the season where the Celtics have everybody available. Jeff Green is in my opinion the enigma of this series. After the All Star break, Green is averaging 49.3% FG, 43.9% 3pts and 17.3 ppg. His offensive improvement is very important for his team, especially if he keeps being very aggressive in attacking the rim, giving some diversity to a normally pure jump shooting team like the Celtics are. Boston is a team that doesn't try to grab offensive rebounds (#30 in the league with a 20.1% offensive rebound rate) and they don't attempt a lot of free throws neither (#22 in the league with 21.0 FTA/game). So, they need good percentage shooting to be effective on offense. Defensively, the Celtics are a truly elite defensive team with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Avery Bradley. In games where these three players were on the court, already with Rajon Rondo out, the Celtics averaged an incredible 101.1 defensive rating (#2 in the league)!
In terms of the matchup, this will be an interesting battle where the small ball with be used by both teams. On the last two games between these two teams during the regular season, the Knicks crushed the Celtics, while putting some bizarre lineups on the floor, with Carmelo Anthony playing some minutes for example at the Center position! However, it's important to note that the fact that Kevin Garnett didn't play none of these two games helped the Knicks. If a team wants to stop the Knicks's offense, they need to stop their perimeter shooting and Boston has been a top defensive team on this area, as they ended the season by being #4 in the league on 3pts defense with 34.2% allowed. However, the Knicks were the team that scored more treys against the Celtics in one game with 14-27 3pts on the last game between these two teams. The league was unable to adjust to the small ball that the Knicks have been using in both ends of the floor. You would think that the Knicks would be overpowered against physical teams, but the Knicks's switching defense has been leaving the opposing offenses very confused. The best example of that was their game against Indiana last Sunday, where the Pacers's super frontcourt with Roy Hibbert and David West had a massive edge down low, right? Well, West shot 3-12 FG and Hibbert 2-5 FG, while the Pacers as a team shot just 10-13 FG at the rim, while attempting 28 treys and committing 26 turnovers! They really didn't know how to attack the Knicks's defense! Boston may have some edge on that because they are a small team as well, so they won't have to adjust to the Knicks in an extreme way like Indiana or Brooklyn would have to do for example.
There is a big expectation to see what Carmelo Anthony will do on this series due to his past playoff failures. On the four games where the Knicks faced the Celtics during the regular season, Carmelo averaged 25.3 ppg, but shot just 35% FG. Boston is likely to do a lot of switching on Melo defensively, so it is likely to see all Bradley/Pierce/Green/Garnett defending Melo 1*1 at some point on this series. Melo shot a combined of 40-103 (38.8%) FG against the elite defenses of Boston, Memphis, Chicago and Indiana during the regular season, so there are some doubts on how good he will be on this series.
Prediction: I believe this will be a tight series that will be decided on details. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if this game ends up needing a Game 7.
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