NBA champion Celtics prepare for opening night and opener against rival New York Knicks on TSN

BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Celtics are giving themselves one more chance to celebrate their latest NBA championship before turning their attention to a repeat.

The league’s most decorated franchise will raise its 18th flag in the rafters at TD Garden on Tuesday night ahead of the season opener against the New York Knicks. Players will also receive their championship rings at a pregame ceremony.

Watch the ceremony and game LIVE on Tuesday night at 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT on TSN1, TSN.ca and the TSN app.

“It’s a great achievement to be able to do this. Be a hell of a night,” guard Payton Pritchard said after Monday’s practice. “But again, we talked about the need to do this again. We need to redefine this focus.

“We get the rings and then we want to go out and prove that we are ready to make another statement.”

The Celtics cruised through the NBA regular season last year — finishing with the Eastern Conference’s best record through 14 games — and then went 16-3 in the playoffs. Led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, they are bringing back the entire starting lineup and most of the bench, and are the favorites to win it all again.

Coach Joe Mazzulla said he doesn’t feel pressure to repeat.

“We’ll all be dead soon, and it doesn’t really matter anymore. So there’s no pressure,” he said. “You have the opportunity to move the organization forward, to reinforce the tradition and the history of what this organization has. And what more would you expect than someone expecting you to win all the time?

“It’s not pressure,” he told reporters at the team’s practice facility. “There is nothing anyone in this circle can do to me that could impact my identity and who I am as a person or a coach. We’re either going to win or we’re not going to win, and 40 years from now, none of you will be invited to my funeral and that’s it.”

The Celtics won 16 NBA titles between 1957 and 1986, with Bill Russell winning 11 in 13 years. The 1970s teams of Dave Cowens and John Havlicek won a pair, and the Big Three of Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale won three more in the 1980s.

When Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen won it all in 2008, they ended the franchise’s longest title drought. They returned to the NBA Finals two years later but lost to the Lakers. (The 2008-24 period was the second longest drought.)

Pritchard said that to be considered one of the Celtics’ greats it will be necessary to win one more.

“A lot of people can do this once,” Pritchard said. “I know a championship is difficult, but there are a lot of people who have won one. But winning multiple times, creating almost like a dynasty, that’s hard to do. That’s greatness and it’s something we’re trying to achieve.”

The search begins against the Knicks, who have positioned themselves as Boston’s main competitors in the East after acquiring Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges over the summer.

Mazzulla said he believes his team will be ready.

“I trust who they are. I think they understand both ‘This is what we accomplished’ and ‘This is what we’re trying to do,’” the coach said. “All the intangible aspects involved in winning must be transferred from one season to the next.”

“You have to appreciate it,” he said. “But you have to know what got you there, and if you forget what got you there, you’ll never go back.”

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