Celtics crush nonchalant Knicks, move to 10-4

In what was purported to be a thrilling showdown, Boston visited NYC and left with far more than a convincing victory.

Boston, a team on the rise, and New York, one win above them in the early going of the season. The mega-star duo of Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Madison Square Garden. Spike Lee. New roster additions in Jason Kidd, Raymond Felton and a defensive barricade in Marcus Camby & Tyson Chandler (who initially sent Rondo and Pierce to the floor without scoring whenever they drove into the lane in the 1st quarter.

So... what went wrong?

The Knicks came out flat and were determined, or not determined at all, to stay that way for the entirety of regulation. Boston, on the other hand, came into the garden with the hunger for self-assurance, the motivation to leap into their first meeting against an elite team and to emphatically leave them in the dust. Well, the Celtics did just that... by default. Everyone for Boston played well. But it might as well have been an extra practice in the Celtics gym, because New York was numb all night and the gradual phoned-in scores of Melo & STAT did little to affect the obvious outcome.