The Boston Celtics breezed past the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night, winning 121-107. The game was Boston’s first in the NBA’s new competition – The In-season Tournament – as they kickstarted their campaign in style. Jaylen Brown bounced back, after a poor outing against Philadelphia, putting up 28 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds to guide the Celtics to the win. Jayson Tatum also continued his fantastic early season form, with an excellent 23 points and 10 rebounds, as Brooklyn’s weakened interior defence showed.
Brooklyn got off to an excellent early start, taking a lead to begin the first quarter, as the Celtics’ defence struggled to adjust to Brooklyn’s perimeter-based offence. Boston’s offence however showed no signs of slowing down, as they poured in 38 1st quarter points to gain a lead. The Nets, despite losing by 14, did find some success shooting 3s, as they put up 15 3-pointers on 40.5% from behind the arc. The Nets, however, did fight back to end the first quarter, as they cut an early double-digit lead down to just 5 points by the end of the first.
The second quarter was where Tatum really found his offensive groove, as he quickly added 13 points in the quarter to bolster the Celtics’ lead. The Celtics’ bench was able to find some consistency, as Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser finally found some success, especially Hauser who continued to stay hot from three (Hauser shot 5/10 from the 3-point line). Boston also made the most of its size advantage of the Nets as they hauled in 17 offensive rebounds (a season high), as well as outrebounding their opponents by six.
Unfortunately for the Nets, the second half only offered more of the same, as Boston’s defence stepped up halting the Nets’ offence. Brooklyn continues to miss its interior defenders (Ben Simmons and Nicholas Claxton), as the Celtics’ drive and kick offence provided many good looks from three. Jrue Holiday had another good outing against Brooklyn, he once again finished just one assist short of a triple-double, as well as picking up two steals. The Celtics continued to outpower their opponents, forcing miss after miss throughout the second half. Boston was able to easily polish off Brooklyn, allowing the Celtics’ bench to see out the game in style. The Celtics’ win snaps a two-game losing streak on their return to TD Garden, as they look to regain the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
Jaylen Brown had this to say after his bounce back performance via ESPN: “It’s a learning curve. We’re still figuring stuff out. ... Learning from one another,”. Joe Mazzulla commented on the Celtics’ bench success so far this season: “It’s easy to look at the scoring on the bench and feel like they aren’t producing. But its so much other stuff that they do for us on a daily basis… tonight we got to see the other side of that”. Boston will play a back-to-back against the Toronto Raptors on Saturday night, as they look to improve their record to 7-2 and remain unbeaten at the TD Garden.
By Will C
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