Nets Down 2 Games to Celtics
Big expectations coming into game 2 from Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Both fell short of those expectations with a bad shooting night.
The Celtics rallied from down 17 to beat the Nets 114-107. Jaylen Brown had 22 points and 10 of them came in the fourth quarter as the Celtics take a 2-0 series lead.
For both teams the stars did not shoot well but the role players played great. Al Horford had 16 points, Daniel Theis had 15 and Payton Pritchard scored eight of his 10 in the fourth. Tatum had a bad shooting night but had some big shots down the stretch. He ended with 19 points.
For the Nets Bruce Brown had a great game scoring 23 points hitting his first four shots in the opening minutes of the game. Seth Curry added 16 points to help the team but it was not enough.
Durant had 27 points but had a horrible shooting night. He shot 4-17 and his co-star Irving didn’t do much himself. Irving had 10 points shooting 4-13.
“They’re doing a great job trying to cut off my scoring, limit my shot making” Durant said.
The Celtics were down the entire first half, but were able to tie it up at 79 in the third before the Nets took a 5 point lead heading into the fourth.
Brown was able to tie the game at 92 early in the fourth and took their first lead of the game after a Prichard jumper with 7:48 remaining. That was part of a 23-4 run from the Celtics that put them up 108-96. The Nets almost went three minutes without scoring a basket. Hard to believe with the man power they have.
“They took the lead and they never looked back in that fourth quarter,” Irving said.
The series now shifts to Brooklyn for games 3 and 4. With Ben Simmons expected to come back game 4 the Nets still have a chance but it will not be easy. They have to move the ball around and stop playing isolation ball. It is easy to key in on one guy when he has the ball. If they move the ball around make in game adjustments they can make this a series again.
One question everyone should have on their mind is how tired is Durant? He has played 40-plus minutes in all games over the last three weeks heading into the playoffs his back to back bad shooting nights could be a result of fatigue.
Saturday at 7 will be the next game.
