The Celtics don't need to panic ... unless they keep panicking

It's hard to be surprised by anything at this point in these topsy-turvy playoffs, considering we're barely a quarter of the way through and have already seen more blown 20-point leads than in any other postseason in NBA history, and seven games in which the eventual losing team at one point had an implied win probability as high as 94%.

Even so, what transpired in the first two games of Celtics-Knicks was difficult to believe. The fact the defending champs are heading to the Mecca in an 0-2 series hole against a team they swept in the regular season (with an average victory margin of 16.2 points) is surprising enough on its own. That they're doing so despite having led each of the first two games by 20 points in the third quarter is almost inconceivable.

The way those losses took shape - with Boston shooting a combined 25-for-100 from long distance, continuing to hoist and clank away while their leads disappeared - ignited a familiar debate about the viability of a jumper-heavy approach that contributed to a championship less than 11 months ago. The usual handwringing about the Celtics' unimaginative offense and 3-point infatuation was met with the usual counterpoints about shot quality and shooting variance:

Reasonable people can disagree about the level of luck involved here, but one thing we can say for sure is that the Celtics are going to live with the variance. Not only because they have proof of concept in the form of a Larry O'Brien Trophy, but because Joe Mazzulla is a process-oriented coach whose belief in his team's core identity runs bone deep. Even with their backs against the wall, these guys aren't going to fundamentally change who they are. They will, however, need to be much better versions of themselves for a full 48 minutes.

Glass half full: The Celtics lost Games 1 and 2 by a combined four points despite catastrophic shooting that wasn't confined only to the 3-point line (they also shot 29% on non-rim 2-pointers). They generated good looks by hunting the Knicks' weakest links - namely Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns - which will matter more when they start shooting better than 25% on wide-open threes. And their defense, their most reliable calling card throughout this contention window, held the Knicks to a point per possession.

The Celtics know how good they can be, and they've shot the ball better on the road all season, so they should be as optimistic about their chances of coming back as any team could reasonably feel after dropping the first two at home. They can come back to Boston tied simply by virtue of a few more open jumpers and floaters finding the bottom of the net. At the same time, the Celtics can't just bank on that possibility in the face of their current reality, which is that their margin for error has evaporated in a matchup that's clearly making them uncomfortable.

New York's defense deserves a lot of the credit for Boston's scoring woes. OG Anunoby's done an unbelievable job hounding Jayson Tatum. Josh Hart's done strong work jockeying with Jaylen Brown. Mikal Bridges has unfurled his pterodactyl wings to come up with some huge defensive plays in crunch time, both on and off the ball. Mitchell Robinson's come in off the bench and locked down the paint to the point the Celtics have resorted to hacking him to get him out of the game.

The Knicks are switching a lot more liberally than usual, even when that means leaving Brunson or Towns on an island with Tatum or Brown, and both those guys are battling their tails off to keep the defense out of rotation. What the Celtics really want is to get into their drive-and-kick game to create catch-and-shoot threes, because they don't actually shoot pull-ups all that well. But the Knicks aren't cooperating, and because of how they're defending, a way higher proportion of Boston's threes have come off the dribble in this series than they did during the regular season.

The most pressing issue, though, is that Tatum and Brown simply haven't been good enough, not at punishing mismatches in isolation nor at creating for others when they draw help. They combined for nearly as many turnovers (16) as assists (17) in the first two games, combined to shoot 5-for-32 outside the restricted area in the second halves, and didn't get to the rim enough to offset how poorly they shot from everywhere else.

To be fair, while they made some questionable decisions (like whatever Tatum tried to do on the final Game 2 possession), a few of their misses came on looks where they had enough time to check the wind and tie their shoelaces before letting it fly:

In fact, almost all of the 14 consecutive field goals the Celtics missed during the fourth-quarter stretch that doomed them in Game 2 were objectively good shots in a vacuum.

But watching all those empty trips one after another, it felt like the psychic baggage was piling up faster than the Celtics could wade through it. It felt like they needed to veer off course to escape a predicament of their own making, but only knew how to keep going straight. Attacking vulnerable defenders with your big wing creators is generally a great idea, but when those guys are struggling like Tatum and Brown are, it may be worthwhile to mix in more weak-side activity to try and make the defense move a bit more.

Curling up into no-pass offense basically as soon as the Knicks start chipping away at their lead makes it seem like they don't trust themselves to execute well enough to maintain or build separation. It feels unbefitting of a team with Boston's pedigree and big-game experience, even acknowledging that these types of offensive droughts have been part of said experience.

In both games, the Celtics eventually let the frustration of all their misses snowball into a lack of focus, a lack of cohesion, and a lack of calm. They let it bleed into their defense, which has surrendered a 127.9 offensive rating in fourth quarters in the series compared to 92.9 across the first three frames. You can't just chalk that up to the Celtics' own litany of missed shots, either, seeing as the Knicks have scored only 0.7 points per possession when running off of live rebounds.

Nothing better illustrated Boston's late-game skittishness than watching all-world defender Jrue Holiday pick up a senseless reaching foul that gifted Brunson the Game 2-winning free throws immediately after Tatum punched home a driving dunk to retake the lead.

The Celtics can absolutely come back to win this series; they just need to play the way they know they're capable of playing and resist the urge to panic when they hit a rough patch. That won't be easy to do in what will likely be a ridiculously raucous MSG, but they should remind themselves they're still the champs and still the superior team in this matchup, and that the only thing they have to fear is fear itself.