Celtics 'a little bit off' but calm after historically bad 3-pt shooting night - ESPN

BOSTON — The Boston Celtics had won 125 regular season games and 20 of their last 24 playoff over the last two years coming into their series with the New York Knicks, doing so happily being unapologetic about their historic 3-point shot hoisting.

But the Celtics might've finally reached a saturation point as they missed a record 45 of them Monday night as the Knicks took advantage in a 108-105 Game 1 overtime victory.

At one point in the second half, after the Celtics built a 20-point lead and looking to be on their way to a 10th win in their last 11 meetings with the Knicks, Boston missed its next 10 shots and all were 3-pointers. In all, the Celtics went 15-of-60 on 3-pointers, the most ever taken in a playoff game.

«Some of 'em felt good, some of 'em felt like we maybe forced the issue,» said Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who was 1-of-10 on 3s in the game. «Definitely our rhythm and our timing was a little bit off. We got a lot of great looks, but it may be some truth (to shooting too many) today.»

Brown was correct on the open looks, the Celtics took 45 «uncontested» 3-pointers and missed 32 of them, per ESPN Research tracking. But the volume of attempts, even when they weren't falling, caused the second guessing.

«Obviously in hindsight, if we could go back, we'd probably drive the ball a little bit more because we missed a lot of shots tonight,» said Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, who went 4-of-15 on 3s. «You can always go back and look and see what you should have done differently.»

On several occasions down the stretch, the Celtics ran offensive actions that got Tatum favorable matchups on smaller or slower defenders but he bailed the Knicks out by taking lower percentage long shots.

All the misses — Boston was