Jaylen Brown scored 22 points and Jayson Tatum added 19 points for the Celtics as their team held Durant without a basket in the second half.
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The Boston Celtics rode on good performances from their entire team and even came back from 17 points down to beat the Brooklyn Nets 114-107 at the TD Garden on Thursday. The Celtics put on a defensive masterclass as the Celtics fans got under Kyrie Irving’s skin once again.
Jaylen Brown scored 22 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter and Jayson Tatum added 19 points for Boston, which held Durant without a basket in the second half. Al Horford had 16 points, Daniel Theis scored 15.
After the game, Jayson Tatum said, “This was like an old-fashioned. old-school playoff game. You just have to grind it out. That’s what we did, we just stuck with it. Proud of the guys and how we kept responding all game.”
Kevin Durant top-scored for the Nets with 27 points but struggled from the field for the second straight game, shooting 4 of 17. Kyrie on the other hand had just 10 points with 4-of-13 shooting on a day after being fined $50,000 for directing obscene gestures and profane language at Celtics fans.
“They’re doing a good job trying to cut off my scoring, limit my shot making,” Durant said. “It’s on me to figure it out.”
Durant and Irving were limited to a combined 1 for 17 in the second half. Bruce Brown finished with 23 points and Seth Curry added 16.
“They took the lead and they never looked back in that fourth quarter,” Irving said. “We don’t really have time to be disappointed, to hold our heads. This is part of playoff basketball.”
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Celtics coach Ime Udoka said the approach to Durant has been to get into his air space as much as possible. “I think we did that,” Udoka said. “We want to make him work defensively and offensively have bodies on him the whole time and try to wear him down.”
The Celtics were behind the entire first half but finally caught up to tie it at 79 on a short jumper by Theis. The Nets were able to settle in and took a 90-85 edge to the final period.
Boston tied it up again at 92 early in the fourth on a leaner by Jaylen Brown and took their first lead of the game with 7:48 left on a jumper by Pritchard.
It was part of 23-4 run that grew the Celtics’ lead to 108-96. The Nets went almost three minutes without a basket during the stretch.
The series shifts to Brooklyn for Game 3 on Saturday night.
