BOSTON – It’s over. At least it should have been. With just a few minutes left in Game 1 of Boston’s first-round series against Brooklyn, the Celtics were about to kick the game. A 15-point lead had evaporated. Kyrie Irving, New England’s favorite villain, got hot. Kevin Durant also made a couple of shots. Boston’s offense at the critical moment, a weakness in an otherwise stellar second half of the season, looked spotty.
Those ‘who wants to play the Nets’ narratives? The digital ink was spilling.
And then… wait, what happened?
Here’s how it played out: Just under 40 seconds to play and the Nets up one, Brooklyn had the ball and was looking for the dagger. They looked at Irving, who had 39 points in his return to Boston. He was bottled. They gave the ball to Durant, the Nets’ impossibly long superstar who was paired with Jayson Tatum, the Celtics’ equally long star. Tatum had already blocked one of Durant’s shots earlier. As the shot clock expired, Tatum stayed on Durant’s chest, forcing the former MVP to throw a contested 30-footer.
Boston recovered. Ime Udoka refused to call a timeout. “I tell guys all the time,” Udoka said. “If we have an advantageous position, I will not call a timeout.” Jaylen Brown picked up a start and drove to the baseline. Not a thing. Brown spun him across the court toward Smart. Clever, 4-for-9 from 3-point range, had two Nets defenders bite a fake bomb. Driving, Smart saw Tatum. “Last second,” Smart said. He sent a pass to Tatum, who in one motion turned and threw the ball just as the clock expired.
“Great play by Tatum,” Nets guard Goran Dragic said.
“I just went for the rebound and [Smart] found me,” Tatum said. “And it was just a layup. Just a tray.
What an ending. Officially, Nets-Celtics is a 2-7 matchup. But rarely has a No. 7 seed been so dangerous. Brooklyn won 44 games and needed a play-in win over Cleveland to get into the playoffs, but come on, this was Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. The Nets are not a threat to win a couple of games. They are a threat to win a championship.
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At times, they seemed so on Sunday. Irving was electric. It’s been three years since Irving left Boston for Brooklyn as a free agent. Inside the TD Garden on Sunday, he felt like three minutes. Irving was booed during the introductions. He was booed every time he touched the ball. He engaged with fans repeatedly. Between a possession, Irving put his hands behind his head and held up both middle fingers (big ticket for that). After knocking down a jumper in the fourth quarter, Irving appeared to offer another (ditto). As he headed to the locker room at halftime, cell phones caught Irving directing colorful language to a troublemaker in the hall.
“It’s the energy they have for me,” Irving said. “I’m going to have the same energy for them.”
The hate didn’t bother Irving. “I don’t know if there’s any atmosphere that really throws him off,” Steve Nash said. He nurtured it, or as he put it after the game, “embraced” the “dark side.”
Boston’s perimeter defense is elite. Smart is a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year. Brown and Derrick White are also excellent. Yet there was Irving, who didn’t make a field goal until early in the second quarter, slicing to the rim to close out the first half and raining 3-pointers on the Boston defense in the second.
“Tonight, the act of making shots, just controlling the game for us, was unbelievable,” Durant said. “That’s what we’re going to need going forward. No matter where he is, I think he’s the same player.”
Indeed. If it wasn’t for the Celtics’ heroism in recent games, Irving would have been history.
And it may still be. Boston’s best defense didn’t look like it on Sunday. The Nets connected on 53.8% of their shots. They shot down 45.8% of their 3-pointers. The Game 1 loss was crushing, but Brooklyn heads into Game 2 on Wednesday knowing they were a split second away from winning Game 1 with Durant (23 points on 9-for-24 shooting) playing below his usual level. “They did a good job of forcing me to walk away and help me with the paint,” Durant said. “I just have to be more fundamental with my movements.”
Celtics-Nets was heralded as perhaps the most competitive first-round series. Many predicted that it would be the most entertaining. Game 1 lived up to expectations. For both teams now, it’s in Game 2.
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