Celtics bounce back after loss and beat the Nets 139-114
On Wednesday night in Brooklyn the 9-3 Boston Celtics take on the 5-6 Brooklyn Nets. Boston is looking to rebound after an uncharacteristically sloppy loss against the Atlanta Hawks last night in which they had 20 turnovers and got crushed on the glass. While the Nets are coming off a win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night. The Nets are a young rebuilding team who Boston should handle easily but many thought the same last night against a Hawks team without Trae Young.
The Celtics will need to get back to their championship mentality and take care of business against the Nets or fans in Boston will start to get restless. Neemias Queta would return to the starting lineup in Al Horford’s absence with Horford rightfully sitting out the second night of a back to back. Queta will hopefully get back to his game and help the Celtics with their rebounding issues.
First Half:
Boston would get off to a slow start in Brooklyn starting 0-4 from the field. The Celtics first points would come from Jaylen Brown at the free throw line two minutes into the game. The Celtics have had trouble starting games over the last two weeks falling into 16-2 deficits twice. This wasn’t quite the case in Brooklyn but the Nets would take an early 7-2 lead until Jaylen Brown would hit a 3 pointer making it 7-5.
Some more trouble for Boston in the early going was Queta getting in foul trouble early and Luke Kornet having to come in with Al Horford having the night off. The Celtics would battle back after a slow start led by their superstar Jayson Tatum. Tatum would score 13 in the first, including the teams last 11 of the quarter. Boston would head to the second quarter trailing 34-32.
The second quarter would start with Boston continuing it’s 24-10 run with a Sam Hauser 3 pointer to give the Celtics their first lead of the night 37-36. Joe Mazzulla would be forced to call a timeout after a 9-2 Nets run led by Cam Thomas gave Brooklyn a 45-39 lead with 7:43 left in the half. The Celtics defense was off to another slow start and this trend was starting to become a concern early in the season for Boston.
Kornet would give Boston some much needed good minutes off the bench grabbing an offensive rebound that would lead to a 3 pointer to make it 50-48 Nets with 6 minutes left in the half. The Celtics would continue to be led by Tatum who was up to 16 points 4 rebounds and 4 assists with Boston leading 60-58 with 2 minutes left in the second. Even while playing an up and down first half the Celtics were still able to take a 65-60 lead into the halftime break. Jaylen Brown was leading the way for Boston with 19 points on 6/13 shooting while Payton Pritchard added 13 of his own on 5/7 shooting.
Second Half:
Boston would look much more like the title winning the team they were last year early in the second half. Boston would outscore the Nets 20-10 through the first 5 minutes of the third taking a commanding 85-70 lead. Tatum and Brown were both up over 20 points and both closing in on double doubles. Tatum would hit a 3 pointer to bring his total up to 25 shooting a lights out 5/6 from beyond the arc.
Boston would start to impose their will on the Nets in the second half. Something that the Celtics did to teams quite often last season but hadn’t been able to do much this season was starting to happen. The Nets became defeated and looked ready to quit with Boston expanding it’s lead as the third went on.
Brooklyn wouldn’t quit though getting Boston’s lead down to 11 with a little over a minute left in the third. But Boston would continue to be Boston led by Tatum taking over late in the quarter and a Sam Hauser 3 pointer the Celtics would head to the 4th quarter leading 103-89.
Three minutes into the 4th Tatum would be up to 31 points and Boston was leading 105-92. The early favorite for 6th man of the year Payton Pritchard was continuing his campaign in the 4th. Hitting a pair of crazy buckets to increase Boston’s lead to 112-95 and all but putting the game out of reach for the Nets. The Celtics would run over the Nets for the rest of the game with Tatum leading the way with 36 points, 7 rebounds and 10 assists.
After a troubling start again for the Celtics they showed some more of that championship mentality that fans wanted over the last week. Boston would outscore the Nets 36-25 in the 4th quarter and go on to win 139-114. The Celtics will be back in action on Saturday night against the Raptors looking to keep pace with the Cleveland Cavaliers before their big matchup next Tuesday night.
Listen to the Green Teamers podcast with James Stewart and James Scaramozzino for weekly Celtics talk.
