There is only one explanation for the Boston Celtics’ embarrassing loss to the New York Knicks on Tuesday night: performance-enhancing drugs.

At least that’s what Knicks guard Josh Hart is doing.

While many in the NBA world predicted the Celtics would be a little slow out of the gate to start the new season fresh after winning the title, Boston came out of the gate on fire against a new-looking New York team.

While the Knicks hung around for the first half of the first quarter, the Celtics quickly slammed the door shut by jumping out to a 43-24 lead near the end of the first frame. Jayson Tatum was a problem for the Knicks all night, as he managed to score 37 points while going 14-for-18 from the floor, while Derrick White and Jaylen Brown each scored 24 points and 23 points, respectively.

The most mind-boggling statistic of the game, however, was that the Celtics made 61 three-point attempts. Shooting 61 times from the arc every night isn’t going to yield much success in the long run, but if you make 29 of 61 like Boston did on Tuesday night, that’s going to be difficult to achieve. find a team that can beat them.

Hart had a front row seat to witness the Celtics’ three-point fire, and when asked after the game if Boston did anything specific to get so many good looks from deep, he took the light-hearted route and urged the N.B.A. jokingly recommends taking drugs. test the Boston team.

“I don’t know. The NBA needs to drug test them all. I’ll tell you right now,” Hart said. SNY. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. They played extremely well, we’ll look at it. We’ll learn from it, look at some of the defensive missteps we had.”

The Knicks simply ran into a buzzsaw on Tuesday night.

The Celtics led the league in three-point attempts (42.5) per game last season, but no one could have predicted 61 three-point attempts in the season opener, and they certainly didn’t see them hit 29 deep balls like they did in their season opener. season opening win.