After a highly competitive season opener, the Celtics were significantly less competitive against the Knicks on Friday, falling 105-95 to the team that eliminated them from the postseason last year at Madison Square Garden.

Here are the takeaways.

The Knicks, simply, are better.

To avoid the siren call of overreacting to a small sample size, let’s start with what we know.

The Knicks were expected to be better than the Celtics, and they are. The Celtics lost a lot of stellar defensive players, most notably Jrue Holiday, and they paid the price against Jalen Brunson, whose 31 points and five assists looked a little easier than they did last year during the regular season. Karl-Anthony Towns, meanwhile, feasted against a Celtics team that looks clumsy at times defensively and downright ab

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