2025 NBA PLAYOFFS East Semifinals: #2 Boston Celtics vs #3 New York Knicks (NYK leads 3-1)

[DaGawd]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

Well they do hate Embiid as much as we do…

true dat.. **** embiid!

[bronxknicksfan1]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

The biggest yappers amongst Celtics fans been quiet for like a week, so yeah

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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[DaGawd]

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top 3 player in the league and he ain’t 2nd or 3rd

[gavran]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

Well they do hate Embiid as much as we do…

No they don't.

[Fat]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

I’ve had my foot on Celtics neck in all the game threads on this board since the series was 0-0, but I’ll admit the Tatum injury took some of the fun out of it for me

[DaGawd]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

I’ve had my foot on Celtics neck in all the game threads on this board since the series was 0-0, but I’ll admit the Tatum injury took some of the fun out of it for me

yeah injuries suck to see especially to a guy of that magnitude. i just don’t want to hear that the reason we win this series once we finish them, he was there for the majority of it

[LFGK]

I think we’re the best tier two team and have been all season…Brunson is an even more lethal killer than Ant or Hali, wingstop are even badder dudes than Nembhard & Nesmith or McDaniels & NAW, and we had the best offense of this troika.

…but I’ve been telling people about the Pacers & Wolves all season as well as us, because those teams are both really good and both of them punch up really well.

I’d favor us over both of them but wouldn’t be surprised at all if they upset us the same way I wasn’t surprised that the Knicks & Pacers gave the Celtics & Cavs all they could handle and J won’t be surprised when the wolves raise their game to outplay the thunder.

Maybe we were Tier 2 but now? Tier 2 teams dont beat Teir 1 teams like the Champs without home court advantage. And..Its not luck...Knicks are Tier1.

For sure and it would be hard to argue otherwise. Great teams beat great teams. That's what the playoffs are about.

If Knicks finish off this series on Wednesday, they would be literally undefeated on the road in the playoffs - while still having home court advantage in the ECF. That sounds like like a great team to me.

but I thought they were 0-10 against the top 3 teams in the NBA in the regular season and that's all that matters.

[taikibansei]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

I’ve had my foot on Celtics neck in all the game threads on this board since the series was 0-0, but I’ll admit the Tatum injury took some of the fun out of it for me

yeah injuries suck to see especially to a guy of that magnitude. i just don’t want to hear that the reason we win this series once we finish them, he was there for the majority of it

Especially given how we were down Randle, Mitch, OG, and Brunson--with Hart injured but playing--by the end of least year's playoffs, and had Mitch, Brunson and Precious each gone for extended parts of this regular season, and yet many posters here still talked about how we uSeD iNjURiEs aS aN ExCuSe....

That said, Boston's a great team, and I liked the idea of taking them down at full health. Injuries suck!

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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top 3 player in the league and he ain’t 2nd or 3rd

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[cgf]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

Well they do hate Embiid as much as we do…

true dat.. **** embiid!

Amen, f*** Embiid indeed!

[cgf]

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100% pure assassin

[RHODEY]

See I think tier 2 teams can be great teams and epic champions. They aren’t consistently at that level, like the tier 1 teams, but their A-game is at that level when they tap into it.

I think we’re a great team who can go toe to toe with anyone when we play our best and have our top 7 healthy…but we haven’t consistently played at that level like OKC / BOS / CLE did in the regular season.

A sign of a great team mor player) is one that plays great when it matters the most. This is why the 2011 Dallas Mavericks - a team you might cal Tier 2 based of REGULAR season performances- was in actuality a Tier 1 great team. OKC and CLE have done nothing...CELTs won a ring and the Knicks are beating them.

If the Knicks pull it off they are Tier one.....period.

Agree to disagree. I think you can be a great champion even as a tier two team. We were a tier 1 team when Germany won the World Cup in 74 and 2014, but not 54 & 90. Those years we were tier two teams who came through with our best at the most important times, but there were other teams who were more consistently at that level.

Similar to the giants when Eli beat the undefeated patriots, great team and deserved champions, but not as consistently great as the tier one teams that year. And I think that’s what we saw with those Mavs.

Again I think our disconnect is just a question of form v class. On form we are a tier one team right now, but that’s because we are playing our best at the most important time. Not because this is our level consistently.

We arent playing our best...we played poorly during large stretches of all the games. We still won the majority. Because in form we are better and in function we are as well.

[DoctorX]

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That's pretty impressive. On a sidenote all those guys on that list didn't end up winning the title the year they were dominating the 4th quarter outside of Kobe winning in '01. Granted there is a chance the Knicks could end up winning it all this year.

[Clav]

I'm really gutted by the Tatum injury. It's one thing to have a minor injury that causes a series loss... but a long term ligament version is so impactful for the team's future and the superstar's career too, I hate to see it. Wishing JT a good recovery, though I don't know the actual prognosis yet..

[cgf]

A sign of a great team mor player) is one that plays great when it matters the most. This is why the 2011 Dallas Mavericks - a team you might cal Tier 2 based of REGULAR season performances- was in actuality a Tier 1 great team. OKC and CLE have done nothing...CELTs won a ring and the Knicks are beating them.

If the Knicks pull it off they are Tier one.....period.

Agree to disagree. I think you can be a great champion even as a tier two team. We were a tier 1 team when Germany won the World Cup in 74 and 2014, but not 54 & 90. Those years we were tier two teams who came through with our best at the most important times, but there were other teams who were more consistently at that level.

Similar to the giants when Eli beat the undefeated patriots, great team and deserved champions, but not as consistently great as the tier one teams that year. And I think that’s what we saw with those Mavs.

Again I think our disconnect is just a question of form v class. On form we are a tier one team right now, but that’s because we are playing our best at the most important time. Not because this is our level consistently.

We arent playing our best...we played poorly during large stretches of all the games. We still won the majority. Because in form we are better and in function we are as well.

No doubt, I’ve been saying all season that we hadn’t yet seen our best punch, but that we’d been doing enough to get where we wanted to go. That said neither were they playing their best. If they had been we would’ve needed our best for more than just spurts to beat them, and we could’ve still beaten them if we did bring our best.


Sorry, I wasn’t referencing the question of form vs function, but of form vs class. It’s a footballing debate that different countries answer differently, and it references the idea that there is a difference between how well someone is playing in the moment and their overall quality as a player/team.

One aspect of the debate is player selection; do you pick the guy for your NT who is having the better season or the guy who is more talented and typically the better player but is just in a funk? Another is in predicting games because there are some “upsets” that everyone can see coming but that don’t mean that the losing team is actually less talented / lazier / more poorly coached.

That’s why I think that when it comes to class, we were a tier two team this year without a training camp to gel, Mitch for most of the season, or an 8th man Thibs would trust with real playoff minutes. But we’re one of the most in form teams right now, which is why we can outplay teams who might be tier one in class, without everything clicking for us.


But this is very much a question of how you view things. I know the English have the same phrase about ‘form beating class’ that we Germans do, except they believe it is the other way around…they say ‘class beats form’; which is why they can never beat us when it matters

So from my perspective the Knickerbockers are both a tier two team ANd I feel really good about our chances to end the drought, even if we have to face the last remaining tier one team (OKC).

And that’s before we get into how ‘styles make fights’ and we have the size / late game execution to be a really tricky matchup for the thunder if we did get to the finals & face them.

Love iHart, but he’s not keeping Mitch off the glass and Chet just doesn’t have the bulk to stop Karl if he can avoid foul trouble. And we can take advantage of their inexperience late in games, the way a significantly less talented Denver team has been.

In some ways the Pacers scare me more just because I know that they can kill teams late, so our crunch time advantage might not be as significant against them as it would be against the thunder or wolves.

[LFGK]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

The biggest yappers amongst Celtics fans been quiet for like a week, so yeah

[jkvonny]

We are heading back to the '90s/early 2000s again. Possibly!

Pacers/Knicks ECFs.

[Meat]

celtics and knicks fans getting along in this thread.. tf going on b

Well Tatum's a good dude, you only can hate him because he's not on your team

[Capn'O]

Well they do hate Embiid as much as we do…

true dat.. **** embiid!

Amen, f*** Embiid indeed!

Word. **** Embiid!