NBA

2025 NBA Playoffs Preview: Can The Knicks Knock Off The Reigning Champion Celtics?

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By
Esfandiar Baraheni
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Esfandiar Baraheni Sports Editor

Esfandiar Baraheni is an NBA writer, host and reporter who hosts the Athletic NBA Daily, creates social videos for Bleacher Report, and has written for places like Forbes, Swish Theory and TheScore in the past.

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Sports Editor

Published05 May 2025

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This is everything the New York Knicks planned for this summer. When they traded for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, they did so with one thing in mind: toppling the Boston Celtics.

That didn’t go well in the regular season. The Knicks, very famously, didn’t win a single game against the top-three teams in the NBA, the Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers. It all started when they got molly whopped on Opening Night by Boston. The regular season showed they’RE below the league’s top dogs.

But that’s the regular season, folks. The playoffs are an entirely different animal — at least, that’s what the Knicks are hoping.

Boston Celtics

Record: 61-21, No.2 seed

New York Knicks

Record: 51-31, No.3 seed

Can The Knicks Punish Boston’s Switching Defense?

Among the Celtics’ calling cards defensively are their switching and versatile matchup alignments. Head coach Joe Mazzulla is unafraid to park Jrue Holiday on a big man or have Derrick White be the help-side rim protector. He’s comfortable letting Al Horford or Kristaps Porzingis guard in space while both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have the size and frame to switch across multiple positions.

This is counterintuitive to the Knicks’ cause on offense. They’ve often struggled to beat switch-heavy teams this year. This is a two-fold problem.

First, it’s because teams are comfortable stashing a big man on Josh Hart and helping off of him. The Celtics have done this, putting Porzingis on Hart and having him roam around defensively. Secondly, Towns has not been able to punish switches as frequently as the Knicks have needed him to this season.

If they want any shot at being effective against the Celtics, they’ll need to do two things. They must utilize Hart as an on-ball ing hub and off-ball screener, and pray Towns can punish White and Holiday inside when given chances.

How Do The Knicks Insulate Brunson Defensively?

The Celtics are a machine with multiple ways to win. But their weapon of choice tends to be hunting mismatches. Tatum has become surgical in that regard. The Celtics base their offensive identity on running teams through hundreds of screens to get the matchup they like and punish them in isolation. Opposing teams send help, the Celtics make plays off that and they kill you with the outside shot.

It’s a proven, championship-winning recipe, and they’ll constantly use it against Jalen Brunson.

Hunting out Brunson is smart for two reasons. He’s the smallest, most vulnerable defender in the Knicks’ starting lineup and making him work defensively will ideally tire him out to lessen his offensive impact as New York’s highly potent engine.

The Knicks have tried being creative in avoiding this problem. They’ll pre-switch actions or play higher at the level of screens to deter ball-handlers from easy drives. But the Celtics have always found a solution. They’ll either slip those picks or keep screening Brunson until they get the matchup they want.

The Celtics’ X Factor: Jrue Holiday

While Holiday missed the final three games of the Celtics ‘ first-round series against the Orlando Magic because of a hamstring strain, his absence didn’t prevent Boston from moving on in smooth fashion. But his health and availability could be important versus the Knicks.

For starters, Holiday is an integral part of the Celtics’ switch-heavy defensive scheme. His comfort taking on bigger matchups makes Boston so challenging to score on. He’s also a strong, stout defender who can make life complicated for Brunson at the point-of-attack.

Offensively, the Knicks will dare Holiday to beat them from outside. He shot just 35.3 percent from three this season and is the least effective scorer of Boston’s starting five. If the Knicks are smart, they’ll force Holiday to be more of a factor offensively in this series.

The Knicks’ X Factor: Karl-Anthony Towns

As mentioned above, the Knicks traded for Towns with the Celtics in mind. To them, he’s their own Porzingis, a center who instills a five-out offensive environment and makes them impossible to guard. But the Knicks need to find a way to get him involved more frequently.

Too often against the Detroit Pistons, Towns was iced out of the offense in favor of Brunson isolations. While Captain Clutch was incredible versus Detroit, New York needs both of its stars thriving to have any chance of winning this series. Towns had four first-round games in which he took fewer than 15 shots and the Knicks lost two of them. They won Games 3 and 4, when Towns took 41 total shots and scored 58 points.

Prediction: Celtics In 5

It would shock me if New York wins this series. The Celtics just have an answer for everything the Knicks can throw their way. Somehow, in trying to match Boston’s five-out offense, New York built a team easier for the Celtics to stop. If this matchup goes as I expect, the Knicks will have to take a long, hard look in the mirror and figure out how to become more versatile to truly challenge the Celtics out East.