Celtics-Knicks: George's defense, Tatum's drive, Robinson's return

Boston plays its first home game of the season Friday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m. ET against the New York Knicks, after losing its opener 121-113 at Detroit. The Celtics led by as many as 22 points in that game, then gave up a 23-0 Pistons run in the fourth quarter. The Knicks arrive as the reigning NBA champions, but they lost their own opener, 106-100, at home to Philadelphia.

The loss came in the margins. Boston committed 14 turnovers to Detroit's 17 and shot about as well, but the Pistons made 28 free throws to Boston's 16 and won the rebounding battle 49-39. Four storylines will decide whether the Celtics fix that and get their first win: Paul George's defense after his record debut, Jayson Tatum's shot selection, Mitchell Robinson's first game against his old team, and who scores off the bench besides Payton Pritchard.

The scoring Boston has to contain

New York's four leading scorers from last season, Brunson, Towns, Anunoby and Bridges, combined to average 77.5 points a game, and all four played in the Knicks' opener. The Knicks scored 100 points in the loss to Philadelphia, a total Boston would take on any night. The Celtics scored 113 in Detroit and still lost once the Pistons' 23-0 run began, so the plan against New York starts with defensive assignments, not with the offense that already worked.

Paul George has to defend as well as he scored

George's debut was the best individual performance of the opener. He scored 38 points on 12-of-21 shooting, made 7 of 12 threes and 7 of 8 free throws, and added 5 steals in 31 minutes. The 38 points set a Celtics record for a debut, passing the 30 Kristaps Porzingis scored in 2023.

That was a heavy offensive load for a 36-year-old who played only 37 games last season, and Friday asks for something different. Jalen Brunson averaged 26.0 points last season, Karl-Anthony Towns 20.0 points and 11.9 rebounds, OG Anunoby 16.8 and Mikal Bridges 14.7. George is the player Boston is most likely to put on the toughest of those assignments.

The five steals are the encouraging part. His 1.7 steals a game last season were already good, and Tuesday's total came in the same game he was the primary scorer, which suggests the hands and anticipation are intact. The open question is stamina. A night that tiring on both ends is hard to repeat, and the offense will need more creation from Derrick White and Pritchard so George can save something for the other end.

Jayson Tatum has to attack the rim and let the threes come

Tatum finished the opener with 13 points on 6-of-23 shooting, 0 of 7 from three, and 11 assists in 38 minutes. The play-by-play shows where the shots came from: 2 of 7 at the rim, 4 of 9 from mid-range and 0 of 7 from three, with 8 of his attempts coming off the dribble as pull-ups.

The telling number is at the free-throw line. Tatum attempted one free throw in 38 minutes. Last season, in 16 games, he averaged 4.9 free-throw attempts and 8.9 three-point attempts a game while scoring 21.8 points. The opener's version took fewer trips to the line and fewer threes, and replaced them with pull-up jumpers, the least efficient shots on his menu. Boston as a team attempted 21 free throws to Detroit's 32, a gap that starts with its best scorer not drawing contact.

The fair counterpoint is that Tatum was not passive. Eleven assists show he was creating for others, and he is working back from a season that lasted only 16 games, so some rust is expected. But the version Boston needs is the one that gets downhill, draws contact and takes spot-up threes when the defense collapses. That Tatum has the free-throw rate to match last season's, not one attempt a night.

Mitchell Robinson meets the team he helped win a title

Robinson spent last season in New York, appearing in 60 games and averaging 5.7 points and 8.8 rebounds in 19.6 minutes, including 4.2 offensive rebounds a game. He was part of the Knicks team that beat San Antonio in five games for the championship, then signed with Boston as a free agent in July.

His Boston debut was quiet: 4 points and 3 rebounds in 18 minutes, with 2 blocks and 2 turnovers, in a game Boston lost on the glass. Per 36 minutes, last season's rebounding was about 16.2 a game; the opener's works out to 6.0. That gap is the question Friday answers.

Whether a player feels extra motivation against his old team is a story, not a statistic, and no number here claims to measure it. What can be measured is the job. Towns grabbed 11.9 rebounds a game last season, and Robinson's task is to keep him off the offensive glass and finish possessions himself. If he is closer to last season's rebounding pace, the Knicks will see exactly what they gave up. If he is not, the energy argument is just a talking point.

Boston needs bench offense it creates itself

Pritchard carried the reserves in Detroit with 17 points in 28 minutes, 4 of 9 from the field and 7 of 8 at the line. Sam Hauser added 11 in 18 minutes on 3-of-5 three-point shooting, and Baylor Scheierman scored 8 on 3-of-4 shooting, including 2 of 2 from three. Jordan Walsh started but played only 13 minutes and did not score, going 0 of 2, though he grabbed 6 rebounds, 3 of them offensive.

The six reserves who played scored 41 points, which sounds healthy, but the scoring came from two different places. Pritchard created much of his own offense. Hauser and Scheierman made 5 threes between them and every one was assisted, 4 of them by Tatum. That is a useful role, and it depends on the stars drawing the defense.

It is also why the opportunity is appealing for Walsh and Scheierman beyond spotting up. Detroit scored 17 fast-break points to Boston's 11 and won the paint 44-34, and those are the points available to players who run the floor and cut while George and Tatum draw the defense. Walsh's six rebounds show the energy; Scheierman's efficiency shows he can finish when the shot comes to him.

What to watch

Four markers will tell the story early. Whether George's defensive activity shows up again alongside a smaller shot count. Whether Tatum gets to the line more than once and takes closer to his usual number of threes. Whether Robinson's rebounding climbs toward last season's rate. And whether the reserves score on more than catch-and-shoot threes, with Pritchard no longer the only one creating his own shot.

Each comes from a single game, so none is a verdict. But a team that led by 22 and lost can read this opener two ways: as a warning about what it did not sustain, or as a preview of how good it can look when the stars and the bench both play. Friday is the first chance to find out which it was.

Sources: box score and play-by-play data; reports on George's debut record from Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report; the Knicks' championship and Robinson's signing; 2025-26 season statistics.