After clinching the seventh seed with a 115-108 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and a date in Boston for Game 1, the Nets’ Bruce Brown posted some locker room material for the Celtics, calling out Al Horford and Daniel Theis:
Brown was instrumental in Brooklyn’s play-in win, taking more shots than Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and scoring 18 points, grabbing 9 rebounds, and dishing out 8 assists for a near triple-double. After the game, Brown was feeling himself a little and called out the Celtics before a rematch of last year’s first round opponent.
“We can’t let Tatum get 50. We got to be physical with them,” Brown said wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “Boston.” He was born and raised in the area. “Now that they don’t have Robert Williams, they have less of a presence in the paint. We can attack Al Horford and (Daniel) Theis. Them not having Robert Williams is huge.”
Williams is still recovering from torn meniscus surgery and the Celtics have been cagey about a possible return before the conference semifinals if they make it that far. However, with the spaced out nature of Round 1, Game 5 of Nets-Celtics does mark the end of four weeks of Williams’ 4-6 week recovery timetable.
Durant, who followed Brown to the postgame podium, was quick to throw cold water on his teammate’s bulletin board material. Even before KD fielded a question, clearly annoyed, he asked the media, “what did Bruce Brown say when he got up here?”
“That’s caffeine pride talking,” Durant said. “He takes some before the game. Them two dudes can do the same stuff. They ain’t going to be that easy, I’ll tell you that.”
“We respect our opponent,” he continued when pressed on Brown’s comments further. “We don’t need to talk about what we going to do to them. I just don’t like that. But that’s just how Bruce is. He keeps the same energy throughout the whole season, but dang, like, there’s no need to say &*#% like that. Let’s just go out there and hoop.”
Game 1 tips off on Sunday, April 17th at 3:30 pm EST.
