BOSTON — This couldn’t have been what the Knicks envisioned.
Not after trading five first-round picks, a first-round pick swap and hard-capping themselves at the second apron to acquire Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets.
Not after trading R.J. Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors for OG Anunoby, then handing Anunoby — under the threat of him leaving in free agency — a five-year, $212.5 million contract, the richest in franchise history.
And certainly not after trading Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a blockbuster deal for Karl-Anthony Towns.
No, this couldn’t have been it.
The new-look Knicks were supposed to be something resembling the defending champion Boston Celtics: a potent five-out offense with Towns at the five, plus a stingy defense anchored by Anunoby and Bridges.
Or at minimum, the combination of Bridges and Anunoby was supposed to put pressure on the Celtics’ All-Star duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
The Knicks showcased neither a potent offense nor a swarming defense in Tuesday’s season-opening loss to the Celtics, a 132-109 reality check for a team hoping to one day soon supplant the C’s as NBA champions.
The game was so lopsided that the Celtics made 16 of their first 29 three-pointers attempted, tied the Milwaukee Bucks NBA record for 29 threes made at the top of the fourth quarter, then spent the remainder of the final period chucking up threes in an attempt to break the record.
They failed at the record, but still buried the Knicks on Tuesday.
And the results from the early-season measuring stick contest are in and the Knicks, quite frankly, don’t stack up. It’s time to put to bed comparisons pitting the Knicks against the defending champs.
In part, this was to be expected: The Celtics championship core has been together for quite some time, while the Knicks drastically shifted their identity three days prior to the start of training camp in Charleston, S.C., when the front office first struck a deal to acquire Towns from the Timberwolves.
It has long been understood this new-look Knicks starting five, while stacked on paper, needed to build chemistry to reach its fullest potential on both ends of the floor.
Without that chemistry, the Knicks allowed an onslaught from three-point range: The Celtics made 29 of their first 49 threes before the second and third units missed 12 in a row in the final period.
The Knicks defense did that, and it had no answers for Tatum, either. A player the Knicks tailored their roster to keeping in check had the first and last laughs on Tuesday.
Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau’s decision to give Bridges the primary Tatum assignment on defense backfired, and Tatum finished with 37 points, 10 assists and four rebounds in just 30 minutes of play.
After Tatum found himself sidelined on Team USA’s gold medal roster during the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Celtics’ star took out all of his frustrations on Bridges, particularly from downtown, where he connected eight times on 11 attempts.
Brown, defended largely by Anunoby, finished with 23 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field, and Jrue Holiday added 18 points, four rebounds and four assists.
For the Knicks, Miles McBride was the lone bright spot on a night the team hopes to wipe from its short-term memory.
McBride came off the bench and tied Jalen Brunson for a team-high 22 points. He shot 8-of-10n from the field and four-of-five from downtown in 26 minutes of play, cementing his early candidacy for Sixth Man of the Year with a breakout performance to start the season.
Bridges scored 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field but started the game 0-of-5 from the field while missing his first four three-point attempts.
Towns mustered just 12 points and seven rebounds, playing only 24 minutes before Thibodeau pulled the plug, and Anunoby played 34 minutes and finished with just four points, missing all four of his attempts from downtown and shooting just one-of-seven from the field.
The Knicks now return home with few answers and many questions. They now have two days off before hosting the Indiana Pacers on Friday. The Pacers are another team with continuity and a core that has largely been intact for several years.
The Knicks, of course, can’t rush that process. They have to take the punches as they come, and on Tuesday the Celtics earned a TKO.