Well tonight Kyrie Irving (16 points on 6-of-17 shooting, 6 rebounds) returned to the TD Garden with a decent amount of fans in the building and thankfully, there was nothing but a playoff basketball game to talk about after it was all over. In Game 3 of their first round series, Brooklyn jumped out to a 19-4 lead and at that point, I would have bet anything that they would cruise to another easy win. Not so fast my friends as Boston fought back and eventually held on for a pretty thrilling 125-119 victory behind star Jayson Tatum's latest postseason career-high 50-point, seven assists, six rebounds and two steals masterpiece. This being the predictable NBA, the Celts probably will not win another game in the series since the Nets have way more top-end talent than them but hey, at least they showed some life and were not swept away like a bunch of lifeless scrubs.
If Kyrie had been a shell of his usual self, Brooklyn could have walked away with a 3-0 series lead (reminder: no team in NBA history has ever recovered from an 0-3 hole). Shooting guard James Harden (team-high 41 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds) and power forward Kevin Durant (39 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals) were both fantastic but with Jeff Green (planter fasciitis) out for the rest of the series, no other Net scored more than eight points. Despite what you might think, Tatum was not a one-man show as guard Marcus Smart added 23 points and six assists, center Tristan Thompson had his best game as a Celtic with 19 points and 13 rebounds then shooting guard Evan Fournier notched 17 points and five rebounds. If you're wondering about center Robert Williams, he played six minutes before leaving with a left ankle injury. He never returned to action and he was seen afterwards in a walking boot. Ugh, other than Gordon Hayward, he is the most injury prone guy on the C's that I've ever seen. You can never count on him for any stretch of time because there is always some injury or issue waiting for him around every corner.
Whenever the Nets advance past the Celtics (I'm thinking in a gentleman's sweep of 5 games now, right?), they are going to have serious trouble when they face better teams like the Sixers or Bucks in the East. Their big three is normally incredible but the lack of depth is an issue, rookie head coach Steve Nash is as green as he can be in that role and most importantly, Brooklyn refuses to play any sort of defense at all. Yes they have some amazing highlights every game on the offensive end but how do you give up 125 points to a team with one great player? Their lack of size inside is scary as well.
Boston shot 5.4% better from the field (50.6%-45.2%), they grabbed nine more rebounds (46-37), they dished out five more assists (21-16), they scored six more points in the paint (21-15) and they tallied eight more second chance points (13-5). The Celtics led 33-32 after the first quarter which expanded slightly to 61-57 at halftime. Unlike in Game 1, the Nets did not come storming back in the third quarter as the C's were up by as many as 17 points (96-79) late in the frame before Brooklyn cut it to 96-84 going into the fourth quarter. They outscored the Celts 35-29 in the final stanza but it was not enough to steal the win or even force overtime.
Game 4 is on Sunday night (7, NBC Sports Boston) back at the Garden and the cool footnote to that is that there will be a full capacity crowd for the first time in the 2020-21 season since many of the Massachusetts Covid-19 restrictions go away on Saturday. If 5000 people made that much noise and caused Kyrie to be so shook, imagine what more than three times that amount of loud Massholes on a long weekend bender could produce? Like most realistic Celtics fans-which is an oxymoron-I was shocked that they pulled Game 3 out so I would be completely dumbfounded if they can do it again in Game 4 (let's call that extremely unlikely at best). It had been an all-around nightmare week for the Celtics so it was nice to see them put all the drama and negative attention to the side and show a little heart against the Nets.
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