The Celtics defended the Nets masterfully in their last victory, 126-120, over Brooklyn in March. The final numbers on paper appeared as explosive as you’d expect from a high-powered offensive unit led by Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Jayson Tatum’s 54-point classic keyed the win, but nearly as important was Boston’s stretches of strong defensive play that kept the Nets off-balance through key sequences, particularly the third quarter.
Bruce Brown found himself with the ball throughout the frame, scoring 10 points in that frame as Robert Williams III played away from him to impact the interior in Ime Udoka’s defensive scheme. Despite him being able to do some damage, his touches almost felt like a welcome distraction to keep the ball out of Durant and Irving’s hands for most of that stretch. Then, to open the fourth quarter, Brown missed a key point-blank layup.
Brown, a Boston native, now feels like an x-factor entering the Celtics and Nets’ highly-anticipated first round series that feels more like a conference finals. Following his 18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists in Brooklyn’s Tuesday play-in win over the Cavaliers that clinched the No. 7 seed for the Nets, called out Al Horford and Daniel Theis by name as vulnerabilities in Williams III’s absence. Durant immediately tried to walk back the diss, but by Wednesday afternoon, it had already reached Celtics practice.
“We still have two high-level defenders back there,” Ime Udoka said. “Big guys with Daniel and Al, and we have layers to our defense. So, it’s not like we’re getting blown by and Rob is protecting. We still have Marcus, Jaylen, Jayson and everybody else in-between. We know how (Brown) scores and how he attacks in a lot of the drop situations, but we can take that away by how we guard. They think it’s attack time because Rob is out. Obviously, we’ve played in quite a few games without him now and have done good enough beating some good teams.”
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