 Tatum wide open, the Celtics bombing away from downtown. They've blown this one open, a 20 point lead. Kiss goodnight from Jason Tatum in the third quarter. Welcome to Celtics post game live scout Eddie House. I mean, a Smith here within the Celtics beating the Knicks 116 to 102 and scout. We talked about this at halftime. It was a dog fight between both of these teams. The Knicks, they would not lay down in this matchup. What did you see out of the Celtics to get the win? Third quarter, the Knicks eventually, listen, I told you in the first half about the threes that they made. Eventually they got ice cold. Eventually the talent discrepancy was too great and we came out, we played harder defensively, getting into people's airspace and then we started knocking down threes and for all you three point shooter haters or don't think that that's the way to win a championship, it's really about like the things that Eddie says. If you defend and you rebound and your low turnover, you can shoot as many threes as you want because ultimately you're gonna get open shots and the talent of this team is so superior to everybody else they play. Those other things are the only things that they can beat you. They took care of those things in that third quarter, the separation occurred and they coached it all the way to the fourth. Eddie, how were the Celtics able to pull away in this game? But before I answer that, let me, both of you guys know this, right? When they cut it to nine, right? I think it was 99 and 90. Remember when we used to be worried like, oh, here we go again, we're about to blow this. We don't have to worry about that no more because it seems like we do shift into another gear and it all starts with our defense. We get stops, we rebound, we close the possession out with a rebound, then we go and execute and JJ Reddick said it on the air, he was like, with poor Zingis and Drew Holiday, the Celtics are almost like a cheat code. And the reason why he's saying that because he knows basketball, how I know basketball, how Scow knows how people that play, it's virtually impossible if these guys are knocking down shots to stop the Boston Celtics. And that's what happened. The spacing was impeccable. I talked about the ball movement and being challenged offensively, not really defensively, but against this team, your offensive disciplines are gonna be challenged. Our spacing was impeccable. We took advantage of every mismatch that we had and we were able to swing the ball. How many wide open threes did we get? Whether it was poor Zingis, whether it was Drew Holiday in the corner and then sometimes when the things is just flowing like that, guys walk right into a three, a late contest is just like no contest. This team, the way they're playing right now is the best to me that I've seen put on the floor in a long time. And I don't wanna say wouldn't the last time I've seen that team be out there to one of the best Celtics team, but this is one of the best Celtics teams I've seen put out on the floor in a while. And when we talk about legit chances to win a championship for sure, this is one of those teams. And Skal, you mentioned that third quarter the Celtics outscoring the next 35 to 26. What made the difference for the Celtics in that third quarter in order for them to blow open this game? Yeah, I think it was just to pick up defensively. I thought there was another level and then like to echo what Eddie was saying, like a lot of times you focus on your defense, the other stuff just goes, man. I thought the defense went up a level and then all of a sudden you can see like the spacing, the shooting and they just started really flowing and the Knicks ran out of talent. They just had it in the first half and then they just ran out of that bag. There was like no more talent in the bag. The Celtics went to a level and that other team could not go to. And you know, you mentioned the talent and you don't have Julius Randall out there on the floor. You know, OG Ananobi is also out with an elbow injury. Eddie, when you take a look at the Celtics winning this matchup, you know, is there maybe an asterisk around them because they don't have some of their heavy hitters on the floor? They bad. That ain't our bad. They bad. I mean, if we was out there limping around and we was hurt and they came in and smacked us, nobody be feeling sorry. Now we don't feel sorry for nobody. You know, you gotta get out there. You gotta get healthy. It is what it is. And that's part of the whole, that's part of the grind of the NBA. And that's part of the journey of getting to a championship. It entails of, you know, talent, being well coached, being together as a unit and health and a little bit of luck. And you know, if the fact of the matter is we can't put in front of us and say, hey, this is a team that we play and they hurt. Yeah, that win. No, ain't no asterisks out here. No, it's ass kicking. That's what we can get. No asterisks out here. Totally. We can say that? Yeah. I mean, I've heard it on a couple of shows. I mean, I won't say it, you know. I didn't know the rules. The rules are different late at night. Well, yeah, I guess it's what? After 10, it was 11 o'clock. It was almost 11 o'clock. But you know, I guess you can say couple things. Let's take a look at the Eastern Conference standings and the Celtics with an even bigger lead on the Cavaliers. Now after this win tonight against the Knicks, they have an eight game lead in the East. And now an 11 game lead against the Knicks, obviously a team they played tonight. Scout, when you take a look at how the Celtics are planned right now, what separates them from the rest of these teams in the East? It's like a pretty simple equation of defensive versatility. We have different guys that can switch, so we're not gonna be in rotation. We have shot blocking, just in case they do turn the corner. And all of a sudden, we got a guy there. We rebound at a high clip, right? So we just talk defense. Now, offensively, we space you. We drive, you know, lead decision makers and every one of the team. All six guys at play can knock down shots. Drew Holliday, who mostly plays our low dunker spot, is leading the NBA in corner three-point shooting at over 64%. So you just have to search for weaknesses in this team and it's really hard to find them. And when you go into a game and you're going against these other teams out there, they have 25 things they're trying to work on. We might have one or two things that we're trying to work on because that's how kind of complete this roster is made, is Bill. All right, so let's go back to the conversation we were having earlier when we were talking about Jason Tatum being an MVP, right? Okay, so people that would just wake up, didn't watch this game. They'll look in the newspaper or they'll look online. They'll look at whatever they wanna look at, the box four, and they'll say only 19 points. But the fact of the matter is, when I say that he's gonna have to get to the MVP, it's gonna be the separation that he has, the team, his team's success. Because what he's doing, I mean, what superstar do you know? Only takes 15 shots in the game, Scal. And still wins like this. It rarely happens. They gotta take a lot of shots for the most part they're the guys that are the focal point of the offense. They're gonna, you're gonna have to run every single thing through them, whether it be pick and roll, whether it's post, whatever it is, you gotta run it through them. They're gonna touch the ball a million times. Jason Tatum has the luxury where he doesn't have to do that, but he can still affect the game in many different ways. Rebounding, assist is up and things like that. Scorn is not, his numbers aren't gonna be crazy. So for me, I think that when we look at these standings, the further we start pulling away from everybody else, the higher he goes in the MVP voting.