With win, Celts show Knicks something to strive for

Once again, Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek saw in the other guys what he wishes he would see in his guys. And it wasn’t just because Boston came out on top in a 110-94 wipeout Sunday at the Garden.

Hornacek compared what Boston has built under general manager and president of basketball operations Danny Ainge to what he saw in Miami under Pat Riley’s guidance.

“Danny’s put together a bunch of guys that are hard-nosed,” Hornacek said before his Knicks, without Derrick Rose, bound for surgery, and Carmelo Anthony, with a sore back, were thumped. “[Al] Horford is a tough guy inside and you’ve got [Marcus] Smart, [Jae] Crowder. Isaiah [Thomas]’s mentality out there is to kill you at all parts of it. Especially that defensive toughness and the press that they put on teams carries over and kind of spreads to some of the other guys that maybe originally weren’t tough guys or get after it — they have to because a Crowder or Marcus Smart set the tone.

“They play hard every single night. When you do that, then you win games and get your confidence,” Hornacek said, noting “certain guys … just do it. Coaches don’t necessarily have to get on you about doing that. That’s an internal pride.”

Celtics coach Brad Stevens sidestepped any credit. That toughness, he said, comes from the players themselves.

“It’s not coaching. You’re not going to have a roster full of 15 guys that don’t play hard and think you’re going to convince them to play hard for 82 games,” Stevens said. “You recruit hard-playing guys. If you’re a hard-playing guy and you’re around other hard-playing guys, that’s contagious. Certainly there are instances where maybe a guy hasn’t played as hard but when he gets around the Marcus Smarts of the world, and people like that, there’s a contagiousness.

“When you play in Boston, it’s one of the responsibilities that comes with being a Celtic,” Stevens said. “We talked quite a bit about that. There’s no motivational speech to get guys to play hard. You’re either going to play hard or not.”

Hornacek sees that in his team. Sort of. From some guys. Sometimes.

“We’re trying to get that with some of our guys. You look at a Ron Baker, Lance Thomas — we’ve got a couple of guys who do it. Willy [Hernangomez],” Hornacek said. “We have guys that do it at times, but we’ve got to get them to do it for all 48 minutes every night.”

They didn’t get enough Sunday, as Boston ensured it would stay no worse than a halfgame ahead of Cleveland, for the top seed in the East. The Knicks, with 16 points from Courtney Lee, lost to stay in position for the sixth most pingpong balls in the lottery.