After the Boston Celtics won the opening tip, Paul Pierce drove into the lane for a lay-up and missed. Kevin Garnett then grabbed the rebound and missed a shot in the paint. Pierce grabbed yet another offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Avery Bradley in the corner. He missed as well.

The first 20 seconds of Friday night’s Game 3 between the New York Knicks and host Celtics was a microcosm of the remaining 48 minutes. Once again inept on offense, the Celtics now trail the Knicks 3-0 in the best-of-seven series with Game 4 on Sunday afternoon at TD Garden.

“I thought they wanted to play well,” Doc Rivers said of his team before relenting, “we did lose our spirit early on.”

The final score, 90-76, didn’t fully represent how effectively the Knicks took away the home team’s spirit. After the game, the Celtics looked exhausted and defeated.

“They’ve been playing hard, but we’ve just forced them into tough situations defensively, and have been able to wear them down,” Tyson Chandler said.

Rivers tried to reinvigorate his team after back-to-back losses in New York, starting Jason Terry and sending Brandon Boss to the bench, but the move proved futile. Terry, who has struggled in the series, did little more than he did in the previous two games. He scored 14 points, but eight came long after the game had been decided.

Terry left Pablo Prigioni open often in the first quarter and the Knicks took advantage as the Boston defense failed to pressure the three-point line. New York took five of their first eight shots from deep and went 11-for-27 overall.

Garnett came to play, as you might expect, but it didn’t matter. Nothing could wake the Celtics from their offensive slumber. After averaging 96.5 points per game in the regular season, the Celtics have managed just 75 per game in the playoffs.

“Just play together,” Jeff Green said when asked how the Celtics can rectify things. “We got a lot of easy looks tonight. We missed a lot of easy layups. I think we let that affect us on the defensive end.”

Garnett finished with 12 points and 17 rebounds, but Paul Pierce was largely ineffective. He had 17 points on 6-for-15 shooting, five assists, four rebounds and an unsightly five turnovers. Through three games, Pierce has 16 turnovers. Rivers got the sense in the second half that Garnett was trying to will the Celtics back into the game, to no avail.

“He was getting frustrated, because he wanted them to be him,” Rivers said. “In the same spirit, but he just kept chugging along. He didn’t change. He didn’t change his demeanor. He’s as competitive of a human being as I’ve ever been around.”

The only life the Celtics showed came midway through the fourth quarter when Terry tried to go after J.R. Smith following a flagrant foul by the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year. Smith was ejected after the foul was ruled a Flagrant II and Terry’s teammates kept him from reacting aggressively and compounding the loss.

Aside from touching tributes to the first responders in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings and midcourt ceremonies to honor those in Watertown, Mass., nothing went right for the Celtics. They couldn’t even keep score properly. Carmelo Anthony, who had 12 points in the first half, was shown as having only four on the JumboTron. The error was fixed at halftime, but the Celtics were not.

Courtney Lee, buried on the bench for the first two games, got into the game early. In 11 minutes, he couldn’t jumpstart anything. Terrence Williams found himself on the court in the second half, but that prayer would not be answered. Rajon Rondo, he of the torn ACL, is not walking through that door and Rivers is simply out of options.

The Celtics lost three players -- Rondo, Jared Sullinger and Leandro Barbosa -- to season-ending injuries, but no one in the NBA will feel sorry for them. A number of teams, including the Knicks, have dealt with adversity and come out on the other side. This could be said going back as far as this offseason, but Danny Ainge wasn’t able to plug holes as well as his counterpart, Glen Grunwald.

Now, the Celtics, who many felt no one wanted to face in the first round, are a loss away from a sweep. Before long, the questions surrounding the team will have a much farther reach than just the scope of a poor playoff series.

“It’s a simple message,” Rivers said. “You’ve got to win the next one. It’s simple. And that’s where it starts.”

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The New York Knicks head on the road with a 2-0 series lead over the Boston Celtics, largely due to its stifling defensive pressure in the second half of both games.

“We’ve just been locking down,” said Carmelo Anthony. “Our main thing is the defense. In both games it seemed like the second half is where we made our adjustments.”

The Knicks allowed only 25 points in the second half of Game 1, only to allow 23 points in the second half of Game 2. New York’s second half performance in Game 2 set a new franchise playoff record for the fewest points allowed in a half.

Kenyon Martin led the second half defensive effort for the Knicks with four blocked shots and 11 rebounds in Game 2.

“It’s about making adjustments at halftime,” said Martin. “We knew they were going to make adjustments at the start of the game. We were extra aggressive.”

After Game 2, Doc Rivers was asked if Paul Pierce can continue to carry the Celtics on offense in the latter stages of his career.

“He needs some help,” Rivers said. “I think Paul was playing pretty well. I thought he got a little tired in the second half because he tried to do everything for us.”

The loss of Rajon Rondo continues to plague the Celtics and has caused the offense to become stagnate during the series.

“When (Rondo) is not out there they really don’t know in certain situations who to go to and what plays to run,” said J.R. Smith. “That’s a tribute to losing a great point guard like Rondo.”

Despite the lack of ball movement, Kevin Garnett feels Boston’s defense could help the Celtics turn the tide heading back home.

“They haven’t scored 90 points yet,” said Garnett. “When you’re playing a team like this, that’s a good sign.”

Rivers expects the Celtics to come out with a sense of urgency in Game 3, due to the deficit in the series and wouldn’t use the tragedy as extra motivation.

When Rivers was asked what he would say to his team before heading to Boston, he made a brief joke before getting down to the reality of the situation.

“We’re going back to Boston,” said Rivers laughing. “I guess they say the series hasn’t started, I’ve heard this corny line a million times, until the road team wins. I’m positive the series has started because we’re down 2-0.”

After scoring 70 points to carry the Knicks in the first two games of the series, Anthony wants the team to remain united and maintain composure on the road.

“As a team we’ve got to go in there staying together knowing that it’s going to be a game of runs and very emotional in that building,” said Anthony. 

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No team is fresh at the start of the playoffs. The wear and tear of an 82-game season generally doesn't allow any team to be fully healthy or free of fatigue. That especially applies to the older teams in the NBA. The grind of the season always leads us to question what, if anything, the league's older teams have left in the tank at the start of the postseason.

The Boston Celtics have heard these questions more than most teams. 

They're a bit younger than last year's team, but not in ways that will give them a competitive advantage. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry are all in their mid-30's. They're the guys that the Celtics will look to for most of the team's key plays and each player's resume suggests that's a good thing. 

Being older in the NBA isn't exactly a bad thing - it's not like young teams are winning championships. In fact, many of the league's younger teams aren't in the running.

The Celtics, old as they may be, are still capable of playing good basketball, that we know, but will they have enough in the tank to compete for another title? 

In last season's Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics had the Miami Heat on the ropes after taking a 3-2 lead following Game 5, before seemingly running out of gas late in Game 7. Will they be able to find the energy to sustain consistency and win close games this postseason?

They think so and enter the playoffs feeling good enough and fresh enough to make another deep run toward a title.

"I like our team. I like or team a lot," Doc Rivers said after the team clinched the seventh seed. "The key for us is getting through the rest of the games, having some great practices and getting ready for the playoffs. That's what you play the whole season for."

Fatigue, injury and chemistry are always concerns for an older team. Rivers has carefully managed his stars’ minutes to make certain that all their fuel wasn't burnt getting to the playoffs. The feeling in Boston is that everyone is ready to go.

"Our health is good. Kevin (Garnett) feels great," Rivers said. "We've given him a ton of rest over the last few weeks. Our veteran guys are getting rest and our young guys are getting a lot of playing time, which will get them going for the playoffs. I think we're setting ourselves up for a nice run. "

There has been some concern that resting the team's most important players could lead to a disruption of chemistry. It's unknown how the younger players will respond once the Celtics' core guys return to their featured roles.

It's not something Boston believes will be an issue. 

"Rest is always good," Garnett said. "There's never anything wrong with rest, especially when you need it and you're preparing for things to come. It's not that we're not preparing with the team, we're just not playing the games." 

"Resting doesn't mean we're not getting into rhythm with our team because we're not playing because we are still preparing with the team."

Rested and healthy, the Celtics are confident that a deep playoff run is not only possible, it's probable.

"We're very confident," Jeff Green said. "Everybody is healthy and that's the biggest thing. I feel like we can play with anybody if we have everybody healthy. We're going to be ready."