The Celtics travel to New York to take on the Knicks in the first of four meetings this season. They will meet again at Madison Square Garden on March 1. They will meet twice in Boston, the first will be on on January 26 and then, again on February 27. They tied the series 2-2 last season with each team winning twice on their home court.
Both teams are playing on the second night of back to back games. The Knicks beat a 76ers team with out Embiid and Harden by 2 in Philadelphia on Friday night and the Celtics beat the Bulls at home by 4 points. This is the first back to back set for the Knicks. The Celtics are playing in their second back to back set. They won both halves of their first back to back during their 3 game win streak to start the season.
The Celtics are 299-186 overall all time against the Knicks. They are 137-120 all time in games played on the road in New York. The Celtics have lost their last 3 games played at Madison Square Garden. The Celtics are 2-2 on the road so far and 2-1 at home. The Knicks are 3-1 at home and 0-3 on the road. The Celtics are looking to win their second straight game. The Knicks had lost their last 3 games before winning on Friday night.
The Celtics remain without Robert Williams III who is still rehabbing from the surgery he had before the season. The prognosis was that he would return in 6-8 weeks and November 4 was 6 weeks since the surgery. They will likely be conservative with his return so I would expect it to be closer to the 8 week estimate. Also out is Danilo Gallinari, who will miss the entire season with an ACL tear.
Also out for the Celtics is Al Horford, who will sit out the second half of the back to back once again for what is being reported as back stiffness. The last time he sat out vs the Magic, Noah Vonleh got the start in his place. I’m guessing that he will start again. However, Luke Kornet may get the start since he has been playing more minutes than Vonleh in recent games. Marcus Smart landed on his hand in the 4th quarter on Friday and was holding his arm afterwards. Hopefully he will be good to go for this game since he isn’t on the injury list at this time.
For New York, Mitchell Robinson felt some knee soreness to start Friday’s game against the 76ers. He played just 12 minutes and finished with two rebounds before sitting for the rest of the game. Isaiah Hartenstein started the second half in his place. Since they are playing back to back games, I’m…
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