The Brooklyn Nets played the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night after returning from a three-game road trip.
Despite losing to Boston on that road trip, the Nets managed to force overtime against the reigning champions, which was a far better performance than their previous trip to Beantown on the Amtrak, where they lost by 50 points and had to bench Jacque Vaughn.
However, Boston was adding a wing-scorer and the Nets were losing a wing-stopper on Wednesday night at the Barclays Center. While the hosts were without Dorian Finney-Smith, Jaylen Brown, who missed the previous game due to a hip injury, was available. (Mordi Fernández’s squad also lost Ben Simmons; see below for further details.)
However, Boston’s lack of sleep and Al Horford’s absence gave the Nets an advantage; Jayson Tatum and company dropped a close game against the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night, and it was evident right away. They were outworked by the Nets to begin the game, missing six of their first seven three-pointers and committing several unforgivable turnovers.
Ziaire Williams, on the other hand, brought hustle to Brooklyn. With 16 points and four rebounds in the first half, he was the team’s top player. He also lived at the line and was a nuisance on defense.
He said his new squad is “bringing that dawg out of me” after the game, attributing his strong play to his new surroundings. Man, picking up full-court, being tenacious, and simply teaching me is the most realistic way I can describe it.
The Nets established a 13-point lead in the opening quarter thanks to Williams’ enthusiasm.
They then watched it fade away as they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Celtics during a tense second quarter. However, with two minutes remaining in the half, Boston took a 60-58 lead thanks to a basket by Payton Pritchard, which was the game’s only lead change.
They made 13 of their next 21 long balls after Boston’s poor deep start, extending their advantage by 18 points by the middle of the third quarter. Tatum and Brown, who finished with 36 and 24 points, respectively, began to pour in buckets from all over the court.
“Even after [Boston] were up, they continued to attack the paint and apply pressure. They weren’t giving up and kind of just punched us in the mouth,” Williams said.
For the most part, Brooklyn’s 1-on-1 defense against the two Boston players worked well. When faced alone, Williams and Cam Johnson were equally formidable, even defeating Dorian Finney-Smith.
The alternate-universe Nets, Brown and Tatum, fared well after Boston accomplished what they do, which is to create and preserve advantages for them to play off.
What hung over the Barclays Center on Wednesday night was not the history of the notorious Billy King Debacle; the Celtics and the Nets have experienced too many forks in their roads to keep going back to that one. Instead, it was malaise, which the Nets had only encountered once this season, in their defeat to the Detroit Pistons.
The malaise on Wednesday, however, was slightly different. With every fadeaway Tatum made in the second half, the half-green audience applauded louder and louder, and he received shouts of “M-V-P” at the free-throw line. We’ve seen this movie before, and it put the Nets in a difficult emotional situation on top of their difficult talent situation.
