PLAYOFFS 2022 - ROUND 1 - GAME 4 - CROOKLYN - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Sweeps Nets Despite Jayson Tatum Fouling Out

Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving go winless in the playoffs


NESN by Scott Neville

Boston Celtics finished the job against No. 7 Brooklyn Nets in a 116-112 victory at Barclays Center.

Boston swept and eliminated Brooklyn from playoff contention.

ONE KEY TAKEAWAY
Steve Nash was severely outcoached by Ime Udoka all series, and nothing changed in Game 4. The Celtics continued to run a defensive scheme that created problems for the Nets. They also kept up their ball movement and the Celtics’ big men continued to facilitate second-chance points.

The biggest coaching mismatch regarded Nets center Nic Claxton, who the Celtics exploited all series but really doubled down in Game 4. Claxton is a career 53.9% free-throw shooter. Boston fouled him in the paint all series, highlighted by a 1-for-11 performance in the elimination game.

Nash should have simply rotated other big men in, and instead allowed Udoka and company to be constantly bailed out in the paint. What should have been easy buckets under the basket became missed free-throws

The coaching deficiency of Nash showed up in the final minutes as well, with the Nets allowing the Celtics to put the game away against a full-court press instead of fouling to keep the game in range.

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STARS OF THE GAME
— Jayson Tatum scored a team-high 29 points on 9-for-16 from the field. The star forward added five assists and three rebounds as well. Tatum racked up some impressive stats despite fouling out with considerable time left in the fourth quarter.

— Jaylen Brown dropped 22 points with eight rebounds and three assists. Brown made some clutch baskets late in the fourth quarter to help Boston put down the Nets, who never backed down. He became the focal point of the Celtics’ offense when Tatum fouled out and delivered.

— Kevin Durant’s lack of production has been a talking point all series. In Game 4, KD finally looked like himself, scoring 39 points on 13-for-31 shooting with nine assists and seven rebounds.

WAGER WATCH
Celtics big man Grant Williams smoked his points bet Over set at 7.5. Williams had 12 points by halftime as he hit on +100 odds on DraftKings Sportsbook. A $100 bet on the forward would have paid out $200.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will wait to see whether they will play the Milwaukee Bucks or Philadephia 76ers in the second round of the NBA Playoffs.

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Celtics complete 4-game sweep of Nets with 116-112 victory

ESPN BOSTON

NEW YORK -- — Jayson Tatum scored 29 points, Jaylen Brown had 22 and the Boston Celtics completed a four-game sweep of the Brooklyn Nets, becoming the first team to reach the second round of the playoffs with a 116-112 victory Monday night.

Marcus Smart added 20 points and 11 assists for the No. 2-seeded Celtics, who made easy work of what was thought could be a tough series. Boston will wait for the winner of the series between Milwaukee and Chicago. The defending champion Bucks hold a 3-1 lead in that series.

Kevin Durant had 39 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, breaking free after the Celtics had defended him well in the first three games. But he couldn't get the Nets the win they needed to extend what instead goes down as a massive failure of a season.

Expected to be an NBA Finals contender, the Nets needed a strong finish just to grab the No. 7 seed.

Seth Curry scored 23 points for the Nets. Kyrie Irving, whose unavailability for home games much of the season because he isn't vaccinated against the coronavirus contributed to the Nets performing so far below expectations, had 20 points.

The Celtics were under .500 at the midpoint of their season but went 31-10 from there, with Tatum emerging as the scoring star on one of the NBA's best defensive teams.

That defense limited Durant to just 19-for-52 shooting with 17 turnovers through the first three games and made it tough for him, even as he finally got more shots to drop Monday. He was only 13 of 31 from the field, 3 for 11 behind the arc.


112288

I CHECKED MY SMOKER..........STUCK MY FORK INTO THE MEAT....................YEP IT'S DONE!

BTW The officiating last period and a half was rigged...............I MEAN RIGGED!   Ya, they wanted to squeeze more revenue out of this series but it looked like fraud to me, especially Tatums foul out. What a joke, at best it was ball out Brooklyn!

But in a way it was good that they had to execute under pressure and pickup the scoring with their best player out....................and they certainly did!

NEXT

112288

What a fantastic outcome! The next round will be Epic. The Celts will not back down to anybody. Bye bye Kyrie. Moving on to the next round.

As soon as Jaylen hit those first 2 jumpers I knew it was over. They were shook up and their body language was off from the start, but they did play hard. There is such a thing as basketball gods and karma. We overcame the refs, kudos to us, we stuck with our system all through thick and thin and it worked!!! They were creating strategy on the fly with limited success at best and our system worked and can only get better and better.

I don't know if this link will work, if it does, LOL:

https://twitter.com/Celtics_Junkies/status/1518764194224562177?s=20&t=q0xNKtQunnBgwlOkrCuRjg

Who’s Next?

And how is Jaylen Brown’s hamstring??

Plus this:

https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1518771159759740928?s=20&t=q0xNKtQunnBgwlOkrCuRjg

Plus this:

https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1518776945785425920?s=20&t=q0xNKtQunnBgwlOkrCuRjg

=

bobc33 wrote:Who’s Next?

And how is Jaylen Brown’s hamstring??

On to the next:

https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1518781621507403778?s=20&t=q0xNKtQunnBgwlOkrCuRjg

No champagne, just a professional locker room.

Damn . . .

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/uc15ar/highlight_marcus_smart_says_damn_after_a/

In addition to the new nickname for our defense, another phrase is emerging concerning our character.

Finding a way to win.  

This team wants to go 16-0 and is quite capable of doing it and is one-quarter of the way there.  It is not out of the question.  This team may be like those teams of the Russell and Bird 60's & 80's respectively that hate losing more than they love winning.  You will not be short-changed by this team during these playoffs.

And depending upon who shows up for us in the next round, since you see how the 76ers are teetering on the edge/flirting with disaster trying to put away a very good TOR team that is finally showing up like everyone expected and taking it to the deficient 6ers.  Now the media is going to conjure up from hell and jump all over Doc's up 3-1 horror stories and replace it with could this finally be the one time in NBA history a team that was up 3-0 blows it similar/equivalent to what Virginia experienced in the NCAA a couple of years ago losing to a 16th seed.

And this looks like it has legs.  Doc has to be sick to his stomach.  Glad he took care of business with us in 2008.  I'm guessing this quirk of Doc's sort of started for him in 2010, not as drastic but drastic nonetheless.  That was our series and EVERYONE knows it.  But I digress.  Bad luck.

For Doc's sake, I hope he conquers it, but Nick Nurse in his presser was not too high, not too low.  Classic Nick Nurse.  Nick sees blood in the water.  This could be mother of all endings.  I know there's a second round of firings coming around starting this am in BKN.  But this PHI situation is going to be the freak show of all freak shows if it comes to fruition and TOR pulls off the 143-0 impossible and makes it 143-1.  It's coming.  

Again in the 4th, Harden pretty much a no-show with a pedestrian 15/7/2 overall.  Awful.  Toss aside another oxygen bottle on the way up Everest.  No "I" in TEAM.  However you want to look at it.  Sacramento here I come.    

Not putting the cart before the horse, but I'm a little surprised Tim Legler is picking MIL over BOS given the evidence.  He has not embraced our new phrase, Finding A Way To Win, and applied it to the next round, who remains undetermined.  

Stephen A. is on board for now in a BOS vs. MIL series.  But he will change his tune in the following round and it's all MIA for him like it was an LAL vs. BKN 2022 Final.  

But today's yakitty-yak will all be about Doc and the 76ers, maybe something about the collapse in BKN but Stephen A. will wipe his hands clean of KD, KI and BKN.  

Don't forget to record First Take!!

db

P.S.  I have not watched the whole game so I'll reserve comments on the game until I've seen the whole thing!

When you get to the bottom line, 4 close games that could have gone either way. Despite the sweep, Brooklyn was not a pushover team. It’s not easy to win 4 tight contests in a row. Good focus and defense by the Celtics to close out each game.

Click on the link to see it in motion.

https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1518767588284809217?s=20&t=AlYmZUdNPTTPAacvoemLBA

https://twitter.com/statmuse/status/1518766760635162624?s=20&t=lGp-cABRJhI-qBxWmHRG5Q