BOSTON — The Knicks are David.
They are the long shot.
The little guy.
The double-digit NCAA Tournament seed trying to punch above its weight class.
Nobody is giving them a shot.
The Celtics are a whopping 9.5-point favorite in Monday night’s Game 1 at TD Garden, and are minus-800 to reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the fourth straight season and fifth time in six years.
In a recent ESPN poll of its analysts, all 11 picked the Celtics to advance, and only two of them saw the series going a full seven games.
Boston swept Tom Thibodeau’s team during the regular season, winning three of the four games by double figures, outclassing the Knicks for the most part.
“I don’t care,” Josh Hart, the most vocal Knick, said on Sunday on the eve of this Eastern Conference semifinal matchup. “If we’re counted out already, then we should play with a great level of freedom. We don’t really care too much what the outside world says. We’re focused on how we feel internally and going about it that way.
“With us, we don’t really involve ourselves with what other people think. Same people who praise us one day kill us the other, so we’re focused on us.”
To Hart, the regular season is irrelevant.
It has nothing to do with the playoffs.
The Knicks lost three of four games to the Pistons in the regular season, then ended their season in the opening round.
Mitchell Robinson played in only one of the four contests against the Celtics, and it was the game the Knicks should’ve won, losing by two in overtime after Jayson Tatum forced the extra session with a 3-pointer in the final seconds of regulation.
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The 7-footer makes a major difference defensively.
All that matters is how Jalen Brunson and the Knicks perform starting Monday night.
The Celtics’ only tangible advantage is they get one extra game at home.
“It’s the regular season. It means nothing,” Hart said. “There’s bits and pieces you can take from it, but at the end of the day, the series is zero-zero. The playoffs are a different game. So, you can’t think about the regular season. At the end of the day, that’s the team we were weeks ago, months ago.”
The Knicks, of course, will have to be at their best to have a shot to pull off the shocker.
The Celtics are expected to be at full strength for Game 1 — defensive ace Jrue Holiday wasn’t listed on the injury report after missing the final three games of the first-round series victory over the Magic with a hamstring strain — and are 20-4 in the postseason the past two years.
“Balance is what’s going to win,” Tom Thibodeau said. “You can’t have any mental breakdowns where you have a bad two- or three-minute stretch because of their ability to go on runs. You have to minimize that.”
This is a major step up from the Pistons — in fact, it’s a major step from the previous two postseasons, when the Knicks lost to the Heat and Pacers in the second round.
The Celtics won it all a year ago with almost this exact roster.
They are experienced, deep and loaded.
The very best will be required of the Knicks.
But they believe that they belong.
“You’re always going in with confidence. It’s idiotic to play the game if you don’t go in with confidence,” Hart said. “If you don’t go into it to win, you shouldn’t go out there. We’re confident with the team we have, we’re confident with the coaching staff we have. I’m sure it’s vice versa, it’s the same with them.”
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