BSJ Game Report: Celtics 109, Nets 103 - Celtics frustrate Durant again, one win away from sweep

BROOKLYN, NY - Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics win over the Brooklyn Nets in Game 3, with BSJ insight and analysis. 

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics seemed to be in control for pretty much the whole game, but the Nets hung around answering just about every double-digit Boston led with a run of their own to get the lead down to low single digits. The fourth quarter belonged to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who took turns burying the Nets and building a 15-point lead. The Nets made one last desperate burst, but Boston held them off to take a 3-0 series lead.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Stars take over: Tatum was 5-8, scoring 14 in the fourth quarter. Brown had 9 points on 4-6 shooting. Kevin Durant was 1-1, Kyrie Irving was 1-4, and they combined for 6 points in the fourth quarter. The Jays combined for 11 assists but in the fourth, they only had 3, because they just picked on every bad Nets defender that they could. 

Rob returns: Robert Williams was used in two stints, playing 15:34 total. He had one basket (which was a doozy, you’ll see it when you scroll down), 2 rebounds, a block, and an assist. 

“Felt good,” he said after the game. “We got the dub so I’m feeling a lot better. But no pain, no setbacks, so just thankful for that.”

Ime Udoka left some wiggle room, but decided to close with a more familiar lineup. 

“I thought he was great, honestly could have played more,” Udoka said. “He had no problems at all, his confidence is up. That’s what we wanted to see tonight, a lower-minute game … and impacted the game in a positive way.”

We’ll see what Williams is slated for in Game 4, but the early indication is that he could get bumped up to bigger numbers. 

One more game: The closeout game is always tough. No one expects the Celtics to cough up this series the way they're playing, but there's always a tendency to let up a little bit in this situation. 

“They are going to give you their best punch early,” Udoka said. “We don't want to get off to slow starts and give them confidence. We want to come out and do what we've done this whole series and make it tough on them. That starts to mentally and physically wear on you. More of the same for us, get off to a better start and try to get it over with.”

TURNING POINTS

I’m going with two: 

First, in one of the ebbs and flows of this game, the Celtics let another 10-point lead drift down to 75-72 in the third quarter. But then over the last 48.7 seconds, Marcus Smart put back a miss, pulled up for an ambitious jumper that fell, preserving a 2-for-1 opportunity, and then Brown cashed in on it with a dunk to make it 81-72 heading into the fourth. That lit the fuse that sent the game Boston’s way. 

Second was a 10-4 run to go up 15 late that saw Boston just picking on poor defender after poor defender after poor defender. That basically sealed the game. 

FOUR UP 

Jayson Tatum: 13-29 from the field for a 39 point, 6 assist, 6 steal, 5 rebound (and 6 turnover) game. Three of those turnovers were bad ones early. Two were missed connections with guys that I can understand. One was an offensive foul. Not great, but it shouldn’t overshadow his great overall game on both ends of the floor.

Jaylen Brown: He was the catalyst for that fourth-quarter run, scoring 7 straight points and assisting on a Tatum 3-pointer before hitting another jumper for his 9th points of the quarter. It was a huge response to Brooklyn’s last, best chance at making it a game. He picked on Blake Griffin, who came into the fourth quarter and scored 8 points but was still a -4.

Marcus Smart: He didn’t shoot well from 3, but he made some big plays in that fourth-quarter run and did a great job on the defensive end. 

Ime Udoka: Let’s give the coach some love for the game play that has now taken Durant completely out of this series. Durant is the guy that everyone pointed to as the reason why Boston should have tanked the last game and taken their chances with Toronto. Instead, Udoka’s plan has Durant frustrated and minimized to a point where Bruce Brown is taking EIGHT more shots than him in a critical Game 3 at home. 

We need to dwell on that for just a second here. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. 

Brooklyn, down 2-0, at home, needing Game 3 to make this a series, ended up with BRUCE BROWN taking EIGHT more shots than KEVIN FREAKIN’ DURANT. It doesn’t matter that Brown scored 26. What matters is that Durant never got a chance to score 46. 

“Shot attempts is one thing and that kind of tells the story but also points,” Udoka said. “You got to focus on these guys and we're taking risks and making other guys beat us. Credit to Bruce, he's making some shots but we got to live with something, that's what we will live with over Durant and Irving going off.”

TWO DOWN

No Celtics on this list but I will go with two Nets.

Kevin Durant: He admitted he needs to shoot more, saying “I’ve been thinking too much this whole series.” 16 points on 6-11 shooting and only 2 free throws in this situation is as mind-boggling a stat line as I can imagine. Again, he was supposed to be the reason Boston was in trouble this series, and they're shutting him down. 

Steve Nash: I almost feel bad for Nash in this situation because this was never supposed to be how this went. He was supposed to be the former superstar who spoke superstar language and managed big egos on the way to a title. 

Then they added one ego too many, it backfired, and this team is built too weirdly for him to handle. Now, Eric Spoelstra might be able to build a fire out of these sticks and rocks, but Nash was supposed to have a flamethrower and now that he doesn’t, he’s out of ideas.

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- This is why Boston didn’t care to play the tanking game

Udoka knew what he was doing.

Forget for a moment that any deeper, critical thinking in analyzing this series could point people in the direction of a Boston win. We can look past Brooklyn having too many weak links to attack, which was obvious for quite some time. We can even ignore the fact that Nash never had adjustments to go to. 

Udoka knew how to play the Nets. He knew who he had on this team and how they needed to play. They put the game plan together and they stuck to it. 

“I think the most important thing about what we trying to accomplish is that we're all on the same page,” Tatums said after the game. “I tell the guys all the time in timeouts, especially late in games, my message is nobody plays harder than we do. I'm always reminding guys that whoever is on the floor, guys coming off the bench, that's what I want people to think about. That we're the hardest playing team in the league 1-through-15.”

The struggles of the early season are gone; rings in the center of the tree trunk that tell the story of healed trauma that ultimately made the wood stronger. 

And so Boston won the game everyone told them to lose, and they brushed off the blathering about how much of a mistake that was. 

They didn’t win the game because of some fear of Toronto COVID mandates. They won it because Udoka knew he had the guys and the plan to win the series, and they're proving it right now. 

Tatum is an elite scorer and he’s gladly taking on the challenge of defending Durant. Grant Williams is basically a heavy bag in a green uniform on defense whenever Durant is around, and he’s taking the pounding because it hurts Durant more. 

In December, most Celtics fans wanted to throw this team in the trash. In April, this team is trashing one of the most talented scorers in history and making him second guess himself.

Maybe it’s going better than they thought (because it’s basically going perfectly), but this was how Udoka always knew his team could play Durant and the Nets.