The NBA’s secret rule that stopped the Boston Celtics from creating history

The Boston Celtics continued their perfect start to the NBA season, convincingly beating the Washington Wizards after winning against playoff rivals, the New York Knicks.

However, last season's Finals MVP, Jaylen Brown, looked less than pleased with how the Boston Celtics decided to play in the final moments of their blowout victory against the Knicks in their home opener.

With the game out of reach and the fourth quarter began, the Celtics had hit an NBA record, tying 29 three-pointers. As the game continued, Boston aimed to break the record by exclusively shooting from beyond the arc.

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From the eight-minute mark of the fourth quarter, the Celtics missed all of their attempts from beyond the arc, and with 30 seconds left, Payton Prichard had one more shot at history.

Rather than shooting, Prichard decided to keep the ball in his possession and run out the shot clock, giving the Knicks the game's final possession and stopping the Celtics from creating NBA history.

The decision to run the clock out and give the Knicks the ball back was an example of Boston following the NBA's unwritten rule: When a game is a no-contest, rather than taking an extra shot to raise the score, you hold the ball and give it back to your opponent.

Brown and Jayson Tatum weren't impressed with the Celtics' performance in the final eight minutes and their poor shooting from three-point range.

According to TnT Sport, Tatum said, "I'm surprised we missed every 3 for the last eight minutes. We're going to be upset about that."

Brown admitted: "When we were just playing, having fun, playing our style of basketball, everything was going in. Once the crowd got into it, and we started hunting them, we couldn't hit the broad side of the barn."

Even though the Celtics missed out on making history, the team will feel rejuvenated by the performance of their superstar Jayson Tatum, who had been working on his shooting mechanics in the off-season.

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According to the NBA website, Tatum scored 25 points in 18 minutes on 9 of 12 field-goal shooting, including 6 of 9 from three-point range.

At the end of the game, the Celtics superstar scored 37 points, hitting 14 of 18 shots from the field, including 8 of 11 from the three-point mark. He also had ten assists, four rebounds, one steal, and one block.

Tatum spoke on the re-making of his jump shot in the off-season and addressed the fact that his 28.3% from three in the 2024 playoffs sparked the change in his mechanics.

According to Mirror US, Tatum said: "I watched a lot of film. I've been working with my trainer, Drew [Hanlen], a lot recently in the last few weeks. It was a few mechanical things: pickup points, hand placement, getting lower, keeping my shoulders forward, things like that."

If Tatum continues to perform the way he has opened the NBA season, then the Boston Celtics have got to be huge favourites to win the NBA Championship back-to-back.

With the Celtics setting a record-equally pace in their opening game of the 24-25 season, will they go back-to-back and win the Larry O'Brien trophy?

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