The Boston Celtics’ 15-point lead was gone, Kyrie Irving was on fire and had only 11 seconds to save the series on Sunday. Derrick White pushed the ball in the transition and gave it to Jaylan Brown, who runs the base line, and when two Brooklyn Nets cut him off, he turned to his left and tossed it to Marcus Smart. Instead of trying to be a hero, Smart, a fake pump, went past the two nets flying at him and threw it at the cutter Jason Tatum.
Rotation motion. I’m dying. Game. Bedlam.
“Honestly, I think we all thought Smart would shoot him,” Tatum said. “So, hit at the last second, just break the glass; if it doesn’t come in, try playing. But when he made this dribble, we just made eye contact. And he made a great pass. I just had to make a couch. “
The TD Garden winner gave Tatum 31 points in a 9-on-18 shot, Smart his sixth assist and the Celtics 115-114 in Game 1. That also gave Boston a huge sigh of relief.
“These are the best games,” Tatum said. “The games that are the most rewarding, the most fun, just like a racer. We’re up by 15 and we’re down by five and … all you have to do is just try to figure it out.”
Brooklyn started the fourth quarter down with 11 points. It had made 14 turns and was broken on the glass. The Nets led the series 15-2, led mostly by Irving, who scored 18 of his highest 39 points in the game in the last frame. Irving did his damage in a 12 to 20 shot, with six assists, four steals and five rebounds.
Kevin Durant finished with 23 points in a 9-for-24 shot, with four rebounds, three assists and six rebounds, an uncharacteristically ineffective performance. Nicholas Claxton and Goran Dragic combined 27 points and 13 rebounds off the Brooklyn bench, while Claxton blocked three shots.
The Celtics had a 56-32 advantage in points in the fight. Smart finished with 20 points in an 8-on-17 shooting, plus seven rebounds and two stolen balls in the win.
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Here are three excerpts from the Boston thriller:
1. The last stand
The last game of the match was the most memorable, but the last 46 seconds had to be executed perfectly to escape the Celtics with a victory. In a timeout after Irving’s 3-pointer, Boston coach Ime Udoka drafted a set game that called on Horford to screen for Tatum off the 3-point line. The Nets kept Tatum at the top, which meant that Durant and Claxton, their best wheel defenders, were not close to the basket, allowing Brown to go out one on one without worrying about defending help. He got a quick 2, then the Celtics needed a stop.
Boston took a risk by sending a double team to Irving with 10 seconds on the clock, and instead of taking the ball, Irving tried to dribble from it. He finally passed to Durant with four seconds to go, leading to a deep, desperate attempt for 3 points over Tatum’s outstretched hand.
“At both ends, we got what we finally wanted,” Udoka said.
Durant is one of the few players on the planet who can make that shot, but the fact that he had to accept it meant that Boston had done its job. Horford grabbed the rebound and the Celtics went into transition, with a built-in advantage in size and athleticism. There was no need to call a time-out and allow Brooklyn to put his best line of defense on the floor.
“We talk about it all the time,” Udoka said. “If I don’t like what I see, I can still call a time-out and draw something with a few seconds left.”
All the best features of the Celtics were shown in these important possessions. They represented a team without weak defenses – Smart, White, Brown, Tatum and Horford – and they all had to communicate, improvise, stay balanced and be selfless. Horford said he was proud of the team’s composure, and Smart described the result as “satisfactory” because they showed resilience.
“Especially because of the way we started this year,” Smart said. “We were going to lose this type of game. We were probably going to fall apart. And for a moment, that seemed to be the direction it was going.”
Smart said Boston “had a lot of games to learn from this type of incident, so we just wanted to make sure we didn’t come out that way.” And everyone did their job.
2. The great game of the Great Al
Boston wants a lot from Horford. The 35-year-old big man played 41 minutes and spent considerable time as a roaming assistant defender, the way Robert Williams III did before his injury. Horford also spent some time defending superstars on the perimeter, and unlike the last time these teams met, when he went against Durant or Irving, he didn’t have Williams behind him, serving as a protective blanket to block blows.
Horford finished with 20 points in an 8-for-13 and 15 rebounds, six of which came in the offensive glass. As a team, the Celtics grabbed an astonishing 41.7 percent of their misses, prompting Brooklyn to pay for a game with two – and sometimes three – small guards at once and set Seth Curry against Daniel Theis.
Several returns to Horford:
He also missed a rebound in a quick break in the fourth quarter …
… but redeemed himself in the end. Horford is the man who doubled Irving in the Nets’ last offensive possession and is the man who grabbed the rebound in defense that led to Tatum’s game victory.
3. Irving, crazy
Irving went mad, and that was almost enough. His explosion at the end of the match included four 3s, three of which were out of dribble, all of which were difficult, the last against Smart, the finalist for Defender of the Year.
Tatum himself is an All-Defense type and he is listed at 6 feet-8 with a wingspan of 6-11. Three times in the fourth quarter Irving went straight to him and received a bucket.
“Obviously he made some amazing shots,” said Nets coach Steve Nash. “It simply came to our notice then. But in this environment and atmosphere, we needed him to shoot. He was brilliant [in terms of] take pictures tonight. “
The second game is on Wednesday in Boston.
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