The New York Knicks stunned the heavily favored Boston Celtics in Game One of their second-round Eastern Conference NBA playoff series at TD Garden Monday night, winning 108-105 in overtime.
But the loss may not have been the most concerning news for the defending NBA champions. On a night when to say the Celtics struggled from three-point range would be a massive understatement, their most accurate three-point shooter left the game with what appeared to be a serious injury to his right ankle.
His availability for the remainder of the conference semifinal series is now uncertain.
Sam Hauser signed with the Celtics as an undrafted free agent out of Virginia in 2021, but immediately established himself as one of the team’s, and the league’s, deadliest sharpshooters from beyond the arc.
In his four seasons, all with Boston, Hauser has compiled a three-point shooting percentage of .420. That’s well above the league average, which stood at exactly .360 in the 2024-2025 season, and has generally hovered at or near that mark every year since 2005.
Team’s Best 3-Point Shooter May be Done For Series
This season, on a team that led the NBA in both three-pointers taken (48.2/game) and three-pointers made (17.8/game), Hauser was the most accurate shooter from deep. His .416 percentage edged out center Kristaps Porzingis who shot the deep ball at a .412 rate. But .416 was actually a career low for Hauser, who hit three-pointers at a .424 rate in the Celtics’ championship season last year.
The Celtics actually received even more troubling news in Monday’s game, as Porzingis left with what the team later described as a “non-COVID illness” after playing only 13 minutes. The team has listed Porzingis’ availability as “questionable” for Wednesday’s Game Two showdown.
Given that the Celtics rely more than any other NBA team on a high three-point shooting volume, and they suffered a historically bad night from distance on Monday, the loss of Hauser could prove critical to the team’s hopes of getting past the upstart Knicks and if they achieve that, winning a second straight NBA title — which would be a record 19th in franchise history.
The Celtics set an all-time playoff record by missing an astonishing 45 three-point shots in Monday’s game. They converted only 15 of the 60 shots that they launched from deep. That’s a three-point shooting rate of 25 percent.
Hauser Injured Attempting to Guard a 3-Point Shooter
In an odd twist, the Celtics faced the Knicks in October, in the opening game of the NBA season — and in that game Boston tied an NBA record for most successful three-point shots.
Against the Knicks in that one, they put up 61 threes and hit 29 of them.
In Monday’s game, Hauser played only only four minutes, after remaining on the bench throughout the first half. But he played only four minutes — missing both three-point attempts that he took — before leaving the game with the ankle injury.
“The ankle injury occurred when Hauser fouled Knicks forward OG Anunoby on a three-point attempt with 29 seconds left in the third quarter,” according to SB Nation Celtics reporter Noa Dalzell. “He immediately crouched on the ground in pain and was helped to the locker room by Celtics trainer Drew Moore shortly after.”
According to reporter John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal, Hauser left the TD Garden after the game wearing “no crutches, no boot, but his right foot did have some kind of wrap and he was wearing a slide instead of a shoe.”
