Celtics bury Knicks, tie NBA 3-point record with 29

BOSTON — The Celtics and New York Knicks took the court for the opening game of the NBA season Tuesday night, a clash that Jalen Brunson said Tuesday morning was a fair barometer — despite being the first game — for where the new-look Knicks stand against the defending champions.

But instead of a tense, dramatic affair, the only drama on this night at TD Garden, where the Celtics raised their record-setting 18th NBA championship banner to the rafters, was watching Boston spend the final 8:54 of the 132-109 win over New York trying — and, ultimately, failing — to break the NBA record for 3-pointers made in a game.

After Al Horford had Boston’s third straight make to start the fourth quarter with 8:54 remaining — pushing Boston into a tie with the Milwaukee Bucks for the NBA record with 29 makes in a game — the Celtics missed 13 consecutive attempts, including three air balls and several other ugly misses, in what turned out to be the only thing that didn’t go Boston’s way.

“It was almost like we got jinxed or something,” Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said. “It was like when we were just playing, having fun, playing our style of basketball, everything was going in. And then once the crowd got into it and we started hunting them, we couldn’t even hit the broad side of the barn. Everything was off. We got a bunch of great looks, and it was like a lid on the basket.

“So that just shows, like, we’re not a team that’s hunting 3s. We play the game and we do what we’re supposed to do, but I think towards the end it was tough because we wasn’t playing the way we had normally played. But we still had a bunch of great looks.”