Matt Vautour: For all their New York hype, Knicks present no real threat to Celtics

BOSTON — There are two things which New Yorkers overrate above all else. The quality of their pizza and the relevance of the New York Knicks.

The Celtics and those Knicks begin their best-of-seven playoff series on Monday as the Big Apple Circus comes to TD Garden.

The Knicks will bring with them an exaggerated spotlight, tons of media attention and a whole lotta razzle-dazzle.

All of which helps obscure the fact that playoff basketball always ends in disappointment for Knicks fans and usually ends pretty early in the postseason.

Beginning Monday, Boston will simply be playing the next opponent in front of them to advance to their fourth straight conference finals.

The Knicks, on the other hand, will be playing to redefine their identity. To earn respect. To stop being the Sbarro of basketball.

There will be some added juice because it’s Boston and New York. Tom Thibodeau used to be a Celtics assistant. Kristaps Porzingis and Luke Kornet used to be Knicks.

And the fanbases don’t like each other either. But that has as much to do with Red Sox-Yankees and Patriots-Jets as any recent build up between the two.

Madison Square Garden might be the World’s Most Famous Arena, but right now its only consistently satisfying attraction is Billy Joel. American Airlines Arena, the Kaseya Center and Fiserv Forum might not have Spike Lee in the stands, but they’ve each hosted many more important basketball games than MSG.

Jalen Brunson was four the last time the Knicks were in the conference finals in 2000. Tom Thibodeau, 67, was a freshman at New Britain the last time the Knicks won a championship in 1973.

In between, there‘s been plenty of thunder but no actual reign. The closest the Knicks have come to a banner is watching the Celtics raise No. 18 on opening night.

Since Pat Riley and Patrick Ewing’s knees went south, the Knicks haven’t mattered. When they were free agents, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant chose to sign with the perennially mismanaged Nets, rather than play on the big stage in Manhattan. In hindsight, the Knicks caught a break there, but while they’re better off having escaped the Irving-Durant mess that crushed the Nets, a championship isn’t close in either borough.

There‘ll be some added desperation this year because this Knicks team pushed all its chips to the middle trying to change all of that right now.

After trading for Karl-Anthony Towns, they have a good starting five, but almost no depth. They acquired Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby in hopes of slowing Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Because of the salary cap, the Knicks have very little opportunity to improve their roster via trades or signings going forward. If this team doesn’t win, their run of post-John Starks irrelevance could extend for quite a while.

To still be playing in two weeks, the Knicks have to be much better than they were in the regular season against good teams.

At 51-31, New York had the fifth-best regular season in the NBA, but they were 1-11 against the four teams above them and 2-9 against the three other teams remaining in Eastern Conference playoffs.

If the referees had called a foul in the first round that they later admitted they missed, Madison Square Garden might already be putting its hoops into summer storage.

Instead, they’ll get a chance to knock off the champs. Jaylen Brown welcomed the challenge.

“It’s a great stage for basketball. Just all the history between Boston and New York. It’s excellent to live or re-live in that,” Brown said. “I don’t take that for granted. It’s our job to come out and put on a great performance and take care of business. ... We’ve got to be ready. But it’ll be fun.”

He’s right about taking care of business. If Boston stays healthy and plays like it has, they should win no matter what the Knicks do.

Simply, if the Celtics take the Knicks seriously, nobody else needs to.

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