Jaylen Brown led seven players in double figures on Wednesday night with 22 points, as the Boston Celtics overcame a 17 point second quarter deficit and rallied past the Brooklyn Nets 114-107 in Game 2 of an NBA Eastern Conference First Round Playoff series at TD Garden in Boston. The Celtics now lead the best of seven matchup 2-0.
Brooklyn shot 60% from the floor over the first 24 minutes and got off to a great start to put Boston in a first half hole. Bruce Brown scored the first nine points of the game, 12 in the first quarter as the Nets built a 14 point lead which was 33-24 at the end of the first. After the Celtics cut it to six early in the second, Brooklyn later got a three-pointer and a driving bank shot from Kevin Durant to take their biggest lead at 17. The hosts would score eight in a row to cut it nine on a Jayson Tatum three-pointer ending the period on a 10-3 run to slice the margin to 65-55 at the halftime break. Goran Dragic for the Nets and Grant Williams for the Celtics were big off the bench for their clubs in the first half with 16 and 13 points respectively.
Boston came out charging into the second half. A steal by Jaylen Brown for a Tatum dunk sliced it to 72-70, and after Brooklyn pushed the lead back to seven on two different occasions, a jumper from just inside the foul line by Daniel Theis tied it 79-79 with 3:13 left in the third quarter. After the Celtics tied it once again at 81-81, the Nets went on a 7-0 run and held a 90-85 lead headed to the fourth. Boston owned the final period, and took their first lead of the game and the lead for good on a long jumper by Payton Pritchard at 94-92 with 7:49 left. The Pritchard shot was part of a 23-4 spurt by the green extending all the way out to 108-96 advantage on a Tatum three-pointer to put it away with just over two minutes to go. The series now gets set to shift to Brooklyn for the next two games.
Jaylen Brown added four rebounds, six assists, and three steals in the win. Tatum finished with 19 points, six rebounds, and a game high 10 assists. Williams ended up with 17 points off the bench, Al Horford had 16, Theis 15, Marcus Smart 12, and Pritchard 10 points. The Celtics held Kyrie Irving to 10 points on just 4-13 shooting, after Irving put up 39 in game one. Durant had 27 points to lead the Nets, but 18 of those came from the foul line (18-20) as he was only 4-17 from the field. Bruce Brown would finish with 23 points. Game three is scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
