The Celtics fall to the Knicks 121-96 in preaseason finale


The Carmelo-less New York Knicks rolled past the Boston Celtics 121-96 in the preseason finale as Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, and Al Horford rest.

The Celtics opened the game with their second unit starting plus Amir Johnson, and went back and forth with Kristaps Porzingis and the Knicks through the first quarter. Terry Rozier was all over the court early on, draining three of his four shots from downtown (the one miss came on a forced shot at the buzzer), grabbing two boards, and adding a nice assist:




New York took a one-point cushion into the second quarter, but quickly turned that into a 10-point lead with the strong play of Kyle O'Quinn, Sasha Vujacic, and Ron Baker. Yes, you read that right. The Celts got pounded on the boards, surrendering offensive rebounds at the will of the Knicks. At one point in the second quarter, O'Quinn was outrebounding Tyler Zeller seven to zero.

After a tough start for Jaylen Brown (no points on five attempts), he ended the half on a strong note by knocking down a buzzer-beating three to cap off a nine point quarter for himself and get Boston's deficit back to single-digits. Porzingis led all scorers with 16.

For those of you who missed the second half for the debate, you didn't miss much. New York used a rapid 17-3 run in a span of three minutes to start the half and go up by 20, which allowed them to cruise the rest of the way. Sloppy play and constant hacking made the final 24 minutes hard to watch:



Let's flood ourselves in highlights from that dreadful second half to help us forget about everything else that happened!

Very smooth move here by Jaylen:


Jordan Mickey says "GET THAT OUTTA HERE":


Jaylen may have had a poor night from the field (5-14), but he was still doing his thing at the rim:


Injury Update: Marcus Smart rolled his ankle on a drive to the hoop at the end of the first half with a left ankle sprain. He is expected to miss around two weeks.

That's it for the fake games! The next time we see the 2016-17 Celtics squad suit up, it'll be for a game that actually matters... well, maybe not-- they open up the season against the Nets next Wednesday.


Follow Erik Johnson on Twitter: @erikjohnson32

Photo by Celtics



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