NBA
Knicks Star Shuts Down Celtics Dynasty Idea
New York Knicks star Julius Randle is far from one to welcome our new Beantown overlords.
The Boston Celtics won their record 18th NBA championship on Monday night with a 106-88 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. With the ink on the box score still drying, the basketball world is already abuzz about the prospects of a 19th. Most of the Boston headliners are locked up for the foreseeable future, some believe that yet another Celtics dynasty is on the horizon.
Don’t count Randle, moonlighting as an ESPN/ABC analyst for Monday’s NBA Finals coverage, among them.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I expect a couple more titles. I’m still playing!” Randle declared (h/t New York Basketball on X). “You’ve got to give them credit. Next year hopefully we can stop them.”
Randle and the Knicks are set to stand as one of the biggest threats to a Boston repeat: despite a plethora of injuries, the Knicks won 50 games and finished second behind only Boston on the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. Unfortunately for Randle, he was unable to partake in the ensuing playoff run due to a shoulde injury that ended his season in late January.
To his credit, Randle did credit the rival Celtics for fulfilling everything asked of a top seed. Though partly aided by opposing injuries, the Celtics were never pushed to seven games in their fou postseason chapters, capping off their season with an astonishing 80-21 recod.
“Credit to them. From the very beginning of the season, they were picked to be favorites and they came in and got the job done,” Randle said. “I don’t care who you say they had to go through, they had to play … the league is way more balanced and everybody has a shot. They came in from the very beginning of the season on a mission and they got the job done.”
Randle and the Knicks will have to erase some cursed recent history against the Celtics: Boston took four of five meetings during the 2023-24 season, giving it its first victory in the head-to-head series since the 2019-20 campaign.
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