The Celtics and Nets entered an important tiebreaker game trying to mildly reinvent themselves with Jaylen Brown and Kevin Durant facing short and long-term injuries. The Celtics’ approach wouldn’t change much, only involving deeper rotations to Payton Pritchard and small-ball lineups. Jacque Vaughn imagined deeper changes for his Nets, alterations to their defensive scheme and putting Ben Simmons at the point of attack.
Boston’s spacing and passing persevered, and the Celtics scored an impressive 109-98 win over a team that took the paint away, forced difficult reads and peppered Boston with transition runouts. The Celtics tightened up after halftime and held Brooklyn to 38% shooting through the buzzer, including a 9-for-24 night from Kyrie Irving.
Brooklyn saw early returns breaking out to a 19-14 lead over the Celtics on Thursday. Simmons played the back line defensively away from Robert Williams III and Luke Kornet while Al Horford sat. He tipped an early Marcus Smart pass attempt and forced an awkward Williams III kick-out on a point blank look. Derrick White, Kornet and Williams III scored all of the Celtics’ points midway through the quarter while Brooklyn’s size took the paint away.
Smart and Tatum still managed to generate multiple without getting their own shots off to keep the game close. Smart served eight assists in the first half, getting Kornet a three and leading Grant Williams downhill for a pair of baskets to keep pace with a racing Nets offense. Grant left the court fired up after Tatum’s three tied the game at 23, Joe Mazzulla calming him down as the Celtics stayed composed anticipating various Nets runs. They needed to avoid complaining, too, after multiple difficult calls frustrated them.
Simmons open up the Net’s floor game and found Yuta Watanabe running for two points and faked a set before making a quick outlet pass to Joe Harris for three. Brooklyn led, 31-29, into the second quarter, where Boston’s bench needed to survive without Tatum.
Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard checked in with Malcolm Brogdon to run small ball and they held the line, staying behind by two points after an 8-0 run from Derrick White, Hauser and Pritchard after the Celtics swung a series of passes to find him for three in the corner. Tatum returned opposite of Simmons, who prevented him from reaching the basket after finding a switch on Seth Curry. Simmons blocked Brogdon, who actually tried to attack and sent Warren out on the run for a transition bucket for a 50-44 lead.
The Celtics largely held Irving in check, though, who pressed to get his shot off despite Vaughn not wanting to add more on his plate than usual. Warren relieved the burden with 20 points, but stopped the ball, while Simmons kept it moving, but didn’t score in 26 minutes. Tatum, who struggled to shoot, finished the first half catching a full court bounce pass from Smart, pulling up for two over Watanabe and forcing a three-point foul on Warren shortly before the buzzer. The Celtics scrapped to a 60-57 lead at half.
Smart kept the ball bouncing around the half court to maintain a narrow lead into the second half. Tatum caught and finished a three while another make by White got cancelled out, but Smart’s activity drew an emphatic high five from Boston’s star. He chased offensive rebounds, but the Nets took advantage of that new layer to the Celtics offense by finding Claxton and Harris for transition buckets to grab a lead midway through the third. Watanabe and Irving hit threes, while Claxton floated in the lane to block Tatum after he beat Watanabe off the dribble.
The bench had another boost in it between quarters though. Brogdon scored five straight points on jump shots to reestablish Boston’s lead. Grant hit four straight free throws and blocked an Irving jumper. Smart, helping on Pritchard on the baseline guarding Warren, forced a miss and Pritchard ran out for a layup before the Celtics escaped another quarter with a lead.
Brogdon and Pritchard extended that lead to eight early in the fourth, Brogdon a pair of layups and Pritchard slicing dribbles into the lane and pulling up for two that sent the Celtics’ bench across half court into timeout. Simmons, rolling with a lane to the rim off Irving, threw a pass off of Claxton before missing another layup on the next possession to finish 0-for-3. Smart found Kornet on an alley-oop for a reverse finish that pushed Boston’s lead to double digits, and Tatum extended it to 13 with an and-one finish through Tatum. Williams finished with 29 minutes, stretching to another benchmark in his return to close the game.
The Celtics now move on to Charlotte for a two-game mini series where they’ll likely remain without Brown.
