Welcome to the playoffs …
Welcome to TD Garden, where the Boston Celtics will take on the New York Knicks at 7 p.m. in Game 1 of a best-of-seven series.
We know now that Shaquille O’Neal won’t be playing for the Celtics. A lot has been made of Shaq’s will-he-or-won’t-he status, but with that out of the way we can focus on the game at hand. The Celtics swept the Knicks in four games this season, which is a pretty good indicator that good defense beats good offense most of the time. That being said, the Knicks are capable of winning any one game in this series with their offense. Carmelo Anthony is one of the league’s most unstoppable offensive forces. If the Celtics can’t contain Anthony, and if Amar’e Stoudemire also goes off, it’s going to be a long night.
The Celtics, of course, have the benefit of having been here before. They play well on the big stage. This is a team that struggled through the entire second half of last season before flipping the switch in the playoffs. If we put the Shaq-Perkins debate aside for one second, it’s easy to see that the Celtics will play well if Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett play well. They’ll play poorly if those four play poorly.
It can’t get much simpler than that.
The Globe and Boston.com are out in full force for this series: Monique Walker has recently joined the beat alongside basketball gurus Julian Benbow and Gary Washburn. Amalie Benjamin and I are here to give an assist, while Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Ryan is also in the house to provide his take. Back with much more from TD Garden in a bit.
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