arrived as advertised<\/a>, providing a feisty defensive presence to muck up the game and help Jalen Brunson, who pummeled the Celtics with 31 points in 33 minutes.<\/p>\n![\"Jose](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/user-expressly-acknowledges-agrees-downloading-120737222.jpg\")
Jose Alvarado #5 of the New York Knicks drives to the basket against the Celtics on Feb. 8, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s him,\u201d Josh Hart said of Alvarado, who was earmarked by Mike Brown for 22 minutes but expanded it to 25. \u201cHe\u2019s a really good on-ball defender, takes the challenge of being a great secondary ball handler for us, being able to playmake, get into the paint, handle pressure, so what you got from Jose today is the player he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory moved the Knicks (34-19) into a tie with the Celtics (34-19) for second in the East.<\/p>\n
And it was an impressive way to bounce back, especially without OG Anunoby (sore toe).<\/p>\n
The Knicks were coming off a disheartening blowout defeat Friday to the conference-leading Pistons, who squeezed the breath out of New York\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for it to come back to life in Boston. The Knicks scored 35 points in the first quarter, with Brunson contributing 15.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Celtics cut the deficit to four early in the second half, but they never regained the lead after the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur group is resilient,\u201d coach Mike Brown said. \u201cSometimes like in Detroit, that happens. None of us like it. None of us want to go through it. Give Detroit a lot of credit, but we know it\u2019s not who we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played a lot better than that. We will. But I do think this group is resilient because they\u2019ve shown time and time again after tough losses or multiple losses playing the next game usually doing a pretty good job of playing again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plus, they have a new plucky defensive guard to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously [my teammates] know my passion is defense and they trust in me and believe in me and they let me be myself,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cThey keep saying go out there and be yourself and everything will go the way we need it to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Boston, that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 Jose Alvarado officially arrived at the end of the third quarter. The newest Knick was on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,75,288,11053,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-591688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-jalen-brunson","11":"tag-jose-alvarado","12":"tag-knicks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116038432745854119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Jose](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/user-expressly-acknowledges-agrees-downloading-120731597.jpg\")
Jose Alvarado #5 of the Knicks knocks the ball away from Payton Pritchard #11 of the Celtics during the second quarter on Feb. 8, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n