The Boston Celtics rebounded from a poor start and erased a deficit of as many as 17 points to take an important 114-107 win over the Brooklyn Nets to take a 2-0 lead in the first round series of the Western Conference playoffs on Wednesday night.
To everyone’s surprise, the first unexpected hero of the game was the Nets’ Bruce Brown, who scored the first nine points of the game and in that tenor Brooklyn took advantage to dominate the first quarter, which they left with a clear 33-24 lead. Brown had the best game of his career with 23 points.
Kyrie Irving and Ramadan fasting
The curious note occurred in the middle of that first quarter, as Kyrie Irving was substituted and immediately went to the dressing room, uncertainty took over the scene for a moment, but the controversial player had no injury, it turns out that he has converted to Islam, and being in the fasting season of Ramadan, it is forbidden to eat with daylight, so the winner of an NBA championship took advantage that the sun had fallen to eat his first food.
The second quarter remained dominated by the Nets, thanks in part to Jason Taytum missing his first six shots from the field, in the last two minutes he scored a double and a triple to cut the deficit to 10 points (65-55).
Boston erased a 17-point deficit
But in the third quarter, Boston started focused, including a double-double by Daniel Theis with 3:12 minutes to play to tie the score for the first time since going 0-0.
Already in the fourth period, Jaylen Brown ignited and with five points in a row tied the score at 92, so that, on the next play, a double-double by Payton Pritchard gave Boston the first lead with 7:31 minutes to play.
Kevin Durant’s nightmare
From there, the Celtics never looked back, thwarting all offensive attempts by Kevin Durant who missed his first 10 shots from the field in the second half, giving the Nets only 17 points in the final quarter.
If we look at KD’s 27 points it would seem that it was not a bad game for Brooklyn’s best player, but this is far from reality, hitting only four of 17 shots from the field, in addition to committing six turnovers and five personal fouls.
Boston’s offense was extremely balanced, with seven players in double digits in scoring, led by Jaylen Brown’s 22 points.
What’s next in this series?
Games 3 and 4 of this series will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, starting next Saturday at 7:30 pm ET, the Nets hope to have Ben Simmons, who has been out of action all season, back for those games.
Marca
