It's hard to imagine the Nets not taking one in Brooklyn, but there doesn't seem to be anything they can do right against the Celtics at the moment.
Of course, this largely falls on Kevin Durant. Kyrie Irving gets some blame for Game 2 — a contest in which he seemed to want no part of — but after forcing up 24 shots in Game 1, the only reason Durant provided any offense in Game 2 was the league made sure the refs took care of him. Eighteen of his 27 points came at the free-throw line. Twenty free-throw attempts should lead to something around a 40-point night for even a halfway decent scorer, never mind Durant.
Yet he cannot shake the Celtics.
"Just show (him) a crowd," Jayson Tatum said on Boston's approach to defending Durant. "You don't want to give somebody like that open looks or just easy, uncontested shots. That's when it's going to be a tough night. … Try to make him work for things. At the end of the day, he's going to make shots, but you just don't want them to be easy and him not to feel you."
While another brutal Durant performance and an extremely quiet night from Irving forced Bruce Brown to step up, the Nets showed why they still aren't as good as they try to make everyone think they are. There are some nice pieces on the roster, but Brooklyn lacks depth and continuity.
The Celtics, on the other hand, proved just how deep they are beyond Tatum and Jaylen Brown. And it's not just the fact Grant Williams nearly matched Tatum's scoring output or Payton Pritchard scored 10 points and grabbed four boards in just 16 minutes. It's about when they did it. Williams came through when the Celtics trailed by a lot early and no one else could score. Pritchard did his scoring at the other end of the game, one of his buckets being the one to give Boston the lead it would never surrender.
"For me, it's just about doing my job, honestly," Williams said. "A lot of the time, those guys … we've asked them to do a lot for us (over the season). It's only more in the playoffs.
"For us, it's just about being who we are, trusting one another and understanding that our work to (do) what we do, naturally, is all going to be good."
Stars win playoff series, but reserves can win playoff games. The impact of reserves is maximized by a good system and consistency. Boston has been the epitome of that since the calendar flipped over to 2022. Brooklyn has been the opposite — for three years.
"Most importantly, Ime (Udoka) showed his poise. He didn't panic," Jaylen Brown said regarding his coach's response to Boston's early struggles. "In past years, that might've been the situation, but Ime didn't panic. He stayed with our game plan, and he made some minor adjustments, but not really. We played aggressive, we settled in a little bit and we made some big plays — our role players made some big plays."
The Nets can take Game 3. They can blow the Celtics out by 20 if they want. It doesn't matter. This Celtics team knows how to take a punch — and hit back twice as hard.
