The Knicks’ coach is Tom Thibodeau, who won a ring as one of Doc Rivers’s assistants with the world champion ubuntu Celtics in 2008. New York’s best player — indeed its best player since Cambridge’s Patrick Ewing — is Jalen Brunson (40 points, including a 3-point game-winner with 4.3 seconds left in the clincher in Game 6 against the Pistons Thursday), son of Rick Brunson, who played at Salem High School before playing for John Chaney’s Temple squads against John Calipari’s UMass powerhouse.
The modern-day Knicks can’t beat the Celtics and it bothers them. They lost four of five to Boston last season, went out and reloaded (Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges) in the offseason, then came back and lost four of four to the Celtics this season by an average of 16 points.
The Celtics and Knicks are original NBA franchises, who’ve met in 15 playoff series since the league was founded as the Basketball Association of America in 1946. They met in the postseason five times in the 1950s and five more times from 1967-74. Baby Boomer Boston fans still remember the 68-win Dave Cowens Celtics losing a seven-game set to the Knicks in the 1973 conference finals after John Havlicek hurt his shoulder in the middle of that series. It was the first time the Celtics ever lost a Game 7, and that Knicks team went on to win the NBA championship. The Knicks haven’t won another since.
Brooklyn-born Red Auerbach despised the Knicks. Red played his college ball at George Washington in D.C., and when GW failed to get an NIT bid in 1938 — denying Red his only chance to play in Madison Square Garden — Red felt the slight and never forgot it. Auerbach hated to hear about Red Holzman and the Knicks’ 1970 and ’73 championship teams, believing they were artificially enlarged by New York media and never as good as his 1960s Celtics juggernaut.
The Celtics and Knicks haven’t matched up in any series beyond the first round since Larry Bird and Co. won a thrilling seven-game conference semifinal over Bernard King and Co. in 1984. Hubie Brown was coach of that Knicks squad and King was at the height of his significant powers, averaging 42 points per game in Round 1 against the Pistons.
Those 1980s Celtics were the ultimate trash talkers, of course, and before the start of the ’84 showdown, Cedric Maxwell made fun of King’s unusual gait and announced, “Ain’t no way any [expletive] who walks like this is gonna get 40 off me.”
King refused to shake Max’s hand before the opening tip of Game 1. When King scored 43 points in a series-squaring Game 4 in New York, the vaunted New York Post back page declared, “The [Expletive] is Back.”
Those were the days.
The series went seven, with Boston winning at home on the strength of Bird’s 39-point, 12-rebound, 10-assist Game 7. The Celtics went on to beat the Lakers in the best NBA Finals of all time.
Six years later, the Celtics lost a best-of-five to the Ewing Knicks, with Bird missing a dunk in Game 5 at Boston Garden. They met again in 2011 and 2013, forgettable first-round bouts.
The new-and-improved Knicks were here last October for opening night, when 96-year-old Bob Cousy and the 2023-24 champions raised their banner and got their rings.
The Celtics thrashed the upstart Knicks that night, 132-109.
On Red Auerbach court.
⋅ Quiz: 1. Name three players to win NBA Finals MVP with more than one team; 2. Name the four Red Sox pitchers who recorded wins in the 2007 World Series sweep of the Rockies (answers below).
⋅ The Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson train veered off the rails on “CBS Sunday Morning” last weekend, and from this distance one has to wonder: 1. Did this situation contribute to Bill’s demise in his final days with the Patriots?; and 2. What is the level of concern for Belichick’s bosses at the University of North Carolina? Personal lives are best kept private, but when a public figure introduces this kind of controlling new partner to his or her job, it becomes public business. The Patriots are something of a public trust and UNC is a state institution of higher learning. The 24-year-old Hudson’s apparent control over a 73-year-old sports leader who’s spent a lifetime avoiding all forms of distraction is alarming.
Ted Johnson, Belichick’s former Super Bowl-winning linebacker, on WEEI this past week said, “I think the Carolina Tar Heels should consider firing Bill Belichick … I wonder if he’s fit to coach an NFL team, let alone fit to coach a college team, which, again, put more onus on character and personality of a college coach than I do a pro coach.“
Harvard-trained lawyer/political activist Karen Russell, daughter of the late Bill Russell, this past week posted on X (formerly Twitter) about Hudson’s alleged control over the coach, writing, “Unfortunately this kind of elder abuse happens with boomers with means. Diminished mental capacity makes them perfect marks for grifter groupies who only want to be famous without any apparent talent except embarrassing former giants in their later years.”
Bill Russell was married four times and died in the summer of 2022 at the age of 88. The star center’s widow, Jeannine Russell, was born 33 years after Russell.
Hudson is scheduled to compete in the Miss Maine USA pageant this month.
⋅ Deion Sanders did son Shedeur no favors in the days, months, and years leading up to NFL Draft weekend. Prime’s obnoxious behavior — promoting and protecting Shedeur, retiring his college number ahead of so many Colorado worthies, dictating which NFL franchises would be “acceptable” destinations — were warning shots across NFL America. Daddy Sanders’s otherworldly talent in football and baseball allowed him to behave like an entitled fool through the decades, and Prime promoted Shedeur as similarly talented. No. “Superstar” Shedeur is somewhat of a mythological creation of Deion and media dupes such as Mel Kiper Jr. Reality finally landed when 32 NFL teams passed four times on Shedeur, a fine athlete but a fool’s gold creation of Deion’s grandeur and arrogance. NFL teams correctly decided that a backup quarterback with an ordinary arm who holds the ball too long and fumbles too much is not worth the Sanders family baggage. Good luck to Shedeur. Free of dad, here’s hoping he can earn a starting NFL job the old-fashioned way: talent and hard work.
⋅ USA Today gave the Patriots its top ranking for selections made in the NFL Draft, the only straight A out of 32 teams.
⋅ Patriots first-round pick Will Campbell was born and raised in Monroe, La., and played his high school football for Neville High in Monroe. The great Bill Russell, one of the most important athletes in American history, was born in Monroe in February 1934 and lived there until he was 9 years old, when his family left as part of the second Great Migration. Russell’s dad first moved to Detroit, but eventually settled in Oakland, Calif., where he called for his family to join him. “Moving would help my brother and me get a better education,” Russell wrote in his 1979 book, “Second Wind”. “The opportunities for Negroes were so much greater there [California] than in Louisiana.”
⋅ Don’t forget the Browns’ fifth-round selection of Shedeur Sanders (144th overall) was made with a pick acquired from the Patriots.
⋅ Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta (Colby College, 1993) has invited Colby linebacker Julian Young to rookie minicamp.
▪ After all the good vibes and money spent and the Bregman/Crochet/Buehler/Chapman additions, the 2025 Red Sox went into the weekend one game worse (17-16) than they were after 33 games last season.
⋅ I guess we don’t have to worry about the Dodgers winning 117 games this season.
⋅ The insufferable Kiké Hernandez was asked to pitch at the end of the Dodgers’ 15-2 win over the Marlins Tuesday. Always one to call more attention to himself, Hernandez pitched a scoreless ninth while wearing a pitcher’s protection helmet.
⋅ Sad to see the Lakers and LeBron James bow out of the playoffs. Dance on LeBron’s head all you want, but if you weren’t rooting for LeBron and LA in Boston for the Finals, you have no sense of theater.
⋅ Brad Marchand sure sounds like he likes playing in Florida. The Lil’ Ball O’ Hate told The Athletic, “You wake up every morning, and there’s sunshine. You’re happy. Your body feels better. You’re happy. You can be outdoors every day. You’re at the beach if you want. Every day, you get home from the rink, you almost feel like you’re on vacation.”
⋅ According to the New York Times, a least five of this year’s 16 NBA playoff teams have dedicated business department staff handling celebrity and influencer relationships.
⋅ How can one not root for the Toronto Maple Leafs in this year’s Stanley Cup tournament?
⋅ You could probably win a barroom bet by asking for the name of a guy who played with Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kobe Bryant. A tell-tale hint would be to reveal that the mystery player was once traded for Danny Ainge. Answer: Joe Klein.
⋅ This Is Why They Are Professional Athletes And We Are Not: Red Sox righthander Kutter Crawford was interviewed in last Sunday’s Globe’s “The VIP Lounge” feature. The item featured a nice photo of Crawford on a vacation trip to Grand Cayman and a lighthearted Q&A with the pitcher. When asked, “What book do you plan on bringing with you to read on your next vacation?” Crawford responded, “I don’t read on vacation.”
⋅ Newton South’s Veronica Burton, daughter of WBZ’s Steve Burton and sister of NBC Sports Boston’s Kayla Burton, is in camp with the expansion Golden State Valkyries, starting her fourth WNBA season. Burton previously played for the Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun.
⋅ Big congrats to former Globe baseball scribe Julian McWilliams and his wife, Chelsea, on the birth of their second child, and first son, Mays Lenox McWilliams, who came into this world April 26. And yes, Mays is named in honor of the Say Hey Kid. If you listen to the audio version of John Shea’s book “24 — Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid,“ the voice of Willie Mays is played by McWilliams.
⋅ Quiz answer: 1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks, Lakers), LeBron James (Heat, Cavaliers, Lakers), Kawhi Leonard (Spurs, Raptors); 2. Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.
