The Boston Celtics travel to The Big Apple to play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

The Celtics (1-1) ran into a buzzsaw on Friday, as they took their first defeat at the hands of the Toronto Raptors. Not only did the Raptors look like an elite team in that 114-102 win, Boston collapsed late. In fact, Toronto finished that game on a 12-2 run, as the Celtics couldn't get anything going in the final three minutes. One strange aspect in that defeat was the lack of bench production, as they got just 23 bench points in that loss. That's a low number from a team who maintains that they have the deepest bench in the league and one has to wonder who's going to lead this team. Many assume it's Kyrie Irving, but he has just 28 combined points on 12-of-34 shooting in his first two games. It's probably a case of him getting his feet underneath him after missing much of the 2017 season, as he and Gordon Hayward have a lot of work to do to get back to where they need to be for this team to be at top form.

The Knicks (1-1) looked dominant in their opener, as they handed the Atlanta Hawks a 126-107 defeat. Unfortunately, they followed that up with a 107-105 loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Friday. It was a heartbreaker too, as Caris LeVert hit a game-winning lay-up with one second left to break a tied game. While that loss is disappointing, some of the individual performances have to be extremely encouraging. In fact, Tim Hardaway Jr. has 61 combined points in the first two games, as he and Enes Kanter are carrying this team. Kanter has 45 points and 21 rebounds combined in the first two games and it's clear who's going to run the show for this team. Those two matched up with Kristaps Porzingis (knee) was the future of this franchise, but it remains to be seen exactly when Porzingis will return. He is now eight months removed from his injury but there's really no word yet on when he'll return. That would just add another talented young piece to this already growing core, as Knick fans have a team to get excited about for the first time in a decade.

Boston has defeated New York in 12 of their last 15 games dating back to 2015.