Jaylen Brown gets religious when discussing Celtics' series loss to Knicks 

Cher wanted to know if it was possible to believe in life after love. Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown has even bigger concepts on his mind after the Celtics were knocked out of the 2025 NBA Playoffs by the New York Knicks.

Last season, the Celtics won the Larry O'Brien Trophy, which was the 18th NBA Championship win in their storied history. 

Now they're looking at a long offseason after 119-81 loss to New York that was over far before the final buzzer.

From lifting the championship trophy to getting blown out in the final game of your season.

Forget life after love. Brown compared the loss to the Knicks in this game as well as the loss of the series as a whole to dying.

"Finishing in May feels weird. It's definitely not something we were prepared for," Brown said, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN. "Things didn't go our way this year, and it's unfortunate. But we hold our head up regardless. Losing to the Knicks feels like death. But I was always taught that there's life after death, so we'll get ready for whatever's next in the journey."

For as much fight as the Celtics showed in Game 5 without superstar Jayson Tatum, there was none of that at Madison Square Garden on Friday evening.

At one point, the Knicks were up by as much as 41 points. The Celtics shot just 33% in the first half of the game and from there it all went downhill. 

Brown finished with 20 points, but he fouled out near the end of the third quarter and he also turned the ball over seven times.

Comparing it to death seems a bit dramatic, but there is a ton of unknown for the Celtics moving into this offseason.

Tatum underwent surgery on his ruptured right Achilles this past week. Given the normal timeframe of recovery from that type of injury, his 2025-26 season is absolutely in jeopardy. 

There's also going to be an ownership change in Boston this offseason, and that's not to mention the fact that the team, as currently constructed, has a total cap allocation of $261 million heading into 2025-26. Roster construction wise, something is likely going to have to change.

So in a way, yes, it does feel like death. Perhaps the end of an era. The thing about the Celtics is that they've had plenty of eras, so they're likely to bounce back, but right now this one really hurts.

"You'll never get this season back. You're never going to have the exact same team again,"  guard Derrick White said. "So obviously, there were some highs and, obviously, some lows of the season, but at the moment, it's just kind of down."