NEW YORK — After a win over the Wizards last weekend, Celtics interim coach Joe Mazzulla wasn’t shy about his preferences.
“I love 3-pointers,” Mazzulla said. “I like math. I love open 3s.”
On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, Mazzulla must have been living in paradise.
Early on this season, especially without the services of Robert Williams, Mazzulla knows that the strength of his team is their offensive versatility, and as Saturday showed, their shot-making. The Celtics set a franchise record with 26 3-pointers as they ran away from the Knicks in a 133-118 victory.
— The Celtics’ second unit came up big again. A night after flipping the game in an impressive first-half run and then contributing important fourth-quarter minutes to close out a win over the Bulls, the bench was instrumental in turning the tides in Boston’s favor.
The C’s opened the game with a barrage of 3-pointers to take an early lead before falling behind by two late in the period. But Joe Mazzulla has liked the lineup of Jayson Tatum plus four reserves and went to the combination again. It worked again. The five of Tatum, Malcolm Brogdon, Sam Hauser, Grant Williams and Noah Vonleh went on a 10-2 run late in the first to give the C’s the lead before building on it with an 11-0 run to start the second quarter.
Hauser was instrumental in the turnaround. The sharpshooter lit up the nets at Madison Square Garden by making four of his first five 3-pointers. He scored a career-high 14 points before midpoint of the second as the Celtics built a 14-point lead.
— With Al Horford out for the second leg of the Celtics’ back-to-back, Blake Griffin — who didn’t play in Friday’s win over the Bulls — earned the start, while Vonleh was the first backup big off the bench. That was surprising, given Luke Kornet has emerged as the Celtics’ first big man off the bench. But though he traveled with the team and went through pregame warmups, he was reportedly unavailable due to personal reasons, according to NBC Sports Boston.
— Rob Williams was at Madison Square Garden on Saturday an important step in his recovery process from left knee surgery — but it was a reminder that the Celtics continue to miss his defense. Without Horford or Kornet, the Celtics lacked rim protection in the frontcourt and let their foot off the gas in the second quarter, when the Knicks went on a 14-2 run and basically got whatever they wanted — whether it was inside or out — and briefly took the lead.
