Knicks' Biggest Matchups for 1st Month of 2021-22 NBA Season

Done celebrating the New York Knicks' 2021 NBA preseason opener yet?

It's OK if you're not, since it was an impressive 21-point thumping of the Indiana Pacers. Julius Randle ran wild. Kemba Walker and RJ Barrett both shot 50 percent from the field. The Knicks racked up 26 assists with a mere three turnovers.

It was a lot of fun. But you know what will be even better? When the 'Bockers start playing games that matter in a couple of weeks.

The following three contests in particular look especially juicy for the 2021-22 campaign's opening month.

It's easy to get juiced about opening night, especially when the matchup is a good one—and this is.

While the Knicks are out to prove their 2020-21 season was real, the Celtics are eager to show they're better than they looked. Kemba Walker, meanwhile, should be champing at the bit to show Boston it made a big mistake trading him away this summer.

Randle will give Boston's frontcourt everything it can handle, while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will give similar challenges to New York's wing defenders.

But this is bigger than the stars. This is about both teams trying to separate from the Eastern Conference's middle of the pack.

The East looks crowded. When ESPN's Zach Lowe recently tiered the conference, he lumped New York in with the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets as "threats to escape the play-in." Before you go rushing to call Lowe a Knicks hater—he wrote he liked their offseason even before the Kemba Walker robbery—just note it's more about the conference's depth. Every win will matter in the race for a top-six seed, particularly these head-to-head bouts.

The most important thing the Knicks can do this season is gain some separation in the Eastern Conference's middle class. Beating the teams they should beat is a big part of that, but so is stealing some wins from the top competition.

Not to mention, any New York fans willing to dream big—at least as big as last season's fourth-place finish in the East—will want to see how this squad stacks up against the conference's elite. This contest will be the first true test on that front.

Will the Sixers have the Ben Simmons saga resolved by then? Who knows, but this club could be plenty dangerous without him. Joel Embiid might've been the NBA's best two-way player last season. Tobias Harris was a few threes and free throws away from 50/40/90 enshrinement. Seth Curry didn't miss a shot in the playoffs (not really, but it felt like it).

While the Knicks were swept by the Sixers last season, two of those games were decided by a total of four points. One went into overtime. Saying that, Embiid missed both of those contests, and in the one he played, Philly rolled to a 20-point triumph. If the Knicks want to be considered a really good team they need to knock off really good teams like the Sixers.

Despite retaining a big chunk of last season's roster, the Knicks added enough new pieces for fans and analysts to not feel totally certain of how good this group can be.

A mid-November matchup with Milwaukee could provide a lot of clues.

After leading the NBA in wins but bowing out of the playoffs each of the previous two seasons, the Bucks put everything together in 2020-21. Giannis Antetokounmpo was his typically dominant self, Khris Middleton made one big shot after the next and Jrue Holiday proved to be the perfect missing piece. It all added up to their second world title in franchise history.

The Bucks remain the team to beat until proven otherwise—even if everyone likes the Brooklyn Nets to take the crown—and the Knicks could give themselves a massive momentum boost by knocking off the champs.