The Boston Celtics beat the New York Knicks at the TD Garden tonight to keep their hopes of repeating as champions alive. Despite losing Jayson Tatum to a devastating injury in the game prior, Joe Mazzulla’s men did well to bounce back in Game 5. But if you ask both the teams’ coaches, well, things haven’t really changed. And it seems their players also agree.

The Celtics won Game 5 by 25 points, 127-102. And after the game, Joe Mazzulla was asked whether the injury to JT changed anything for the reigning champions. He did score over 40 points in Game 4 after all. In his response, Mazzulla gave credit to the rest of his team for stepping up in JT’s absence.

“I mean, again, you never wanna be without any of your players, especially one of your best ones. But we’ve gotten plenty of reps at that. And, regardless of who the player is out, each guy steps up and plays a different role. So, we have multiple identities on both ends of the floor, and tonight we’re able to tap into one of the ones that we have, without him. And we just gotta continue to do that,” said the Celtics head coach.

And rather surprisingly, his Knicks counterpart, Tom Thibodeau, agreed with Mazzulla’s assessment. “Well, it doesn’t change stylistically. Like, in terms of, they have a lot of shooting on the floor. So, that’s gonna remain the same. And I think the thing about their team is they’re a great defensive team as well. So, we have to understand that, yeah, we can’t be slow getting back, and you can’t give open shots to them. And so we gotta be tougher with our closeouts and taking airspace away, and we gotta be better with our communication,” said Thibs.

One look at the box score for the game and you’ll find that the coaches are right. Boston played the way they always play — and it worked tonight. Their output from beyond the arc remained unchanged. In fact, their efficiency improved as they made 22 3-pointers off 49 attempts compared to 18 of 48 in Game 4.

The Celtics really stepped up in the absence of their biggest star. Their performance tonight without JT was so good that even the Knicks’ players couldn’t help but acknowledge the reigning champs.

Players talk about the Celtics’ performance in light of Jayson Tatum’s injury

It wasn’t just the coaches — even the players had to acknowledge the way the Celtics stuck to their guns despite Jayson’s injury. And one of the first to make this surprising confession was Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson.

He said that the Celtics are great as a unit that’s been through difficult situations. But Brunson also revealed how the Knicks can avoid the mistakes of Game 5 when the Celtics come to visit them at MSG for Game 6. “They’re a team, a well-oiled machine, that has been in situations where they’ve played without him and they’ve played well. We need to understand that. Trust the gameplan and play accordingly. It’s that simple,” said Brunson. Sounds straightforward enough but can they stay strong?

We know the Celtics can endure through massive struggles. But we hadn’t really hard about how JT’s injury affected the locker room till tonight. Derrick White revealed the locker room’s feelings after Game 4, heading into Game 5. And it seems the prospect of elimination, coupled with being shorthanded, really lit a fire under the 2024 NBA Champions.

“Seeing him [JT] go down was tough. But we got a lot of guys out here that are highly competitive. And, we didn’t want the season to end tonight. So, just going out there, competing. We said after game four, we just got win game five, and now we gotta move on to try to find a way to win game six,” said White.

And it’s this attitude from the Celtics that makes them such a dangerous team to face. No matter the ordeal, no matter their state, this group will always give it their all and try to compete when they’re on the court. After all, it wasn’t just the injury to Tatum. Kristaps Porzingis is also dealing with health issues in this postseason. But remaining undeterred is how this group won Game 5 tonight. Now, let’s see if they can do the same at MSG.