Watch It! – Nets at Celtics

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Here are five things to watch out for when the Boston Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets meet at 7:30 p.m. tonight at TD Garden.

Take a look at Brooklyn’s 20-60 record on the season and you’re likely to believe that tonight should be a cake walk for Boston. It won’t be.

The Nets have surprisingly become a challenging opponent over the last five-plus weeks of play, during which they have gone 11-11. Four of those 11 wins have come against teams that will be playing in the postseason or are in contention to do so.

Brooklyn has stepped up its game at both ends of the court to become a competitive team. Defensively, it has allowed 107.4 points per game during its 11-11 stretch, down from a woeful average of 114.4 PPG during its first 58 games of the season. Offensively, the Nets have shot 45.7 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from long range over the last five weeks, both of which are slight upticks from the first four-plus months of the season.

Should Boston win this game? Yes. There is no doubt about that, as it is the more talented team. But this game won’t be easy, as the Nets have become a respectable and challenging opponent over the last five weeks.

Cleveland embarrassed the C’s Wednesday night on national television, leaving them with next to no chance at earning the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Funny thing is, the Cavs have gone out and been embarrassed two times since then, pushing Boston right back into contention.

Boston almost certainly must win both of its final two games of the season, tonight against Brooklyn and Wednesday against Milwaukee, to earn the top seed. If the C’s accomplish such a feat and Cleveland loses one of its final two games (tonight at Miami, Wednesday versus Toronto), Boston will be the No. 1 seed in the Playoffs.

The possibility of this happening is very realistic. The Cavs are struggling, having lost back-to-back games against the Hawks, the first of which was against an Atlanta team that rested all five of its starters, and the second of which featured Cleveland blowing a 26-point lead during the fourth quarter.

The C’s need Cleveland to continue to struggle, but they must also take care of business themselves.

Boston’s games against the Nets have been important for multiple reasons for nearly all of the last four seasons. Every win the Celtics grabbed during those games was not only important for their record, but also for their draft status.

The famed 2013 trade of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry to the Nets is still paying off for Boston. The Celtics received Brooklyn’s 2014, 2016 and 2018 first-round picks, as well as the right to swap first-round picks this season. Every win Boston dealt the Nets during that time frame improved the C’s chances of having a high draft pick.

That’s not the case anymore this season, because Brooklyn has already locked up the worst record in the NBA thanks to Phoenix’s win over the Thunder Friday night. This in turn means that the Celtics will have the best percentage of landing the No. 1 overall pick at the NBA Draft Lottery next month.

Boston certainly still wants to grab a win tonight, but for the first time in a long time, doing so won’t improve its chances of grabbing a high draft pick.

Boston’s offense has been pretty darn impressive during its last two contests. The C’s racked up an average of 118.5 PPG during those two games while hitting 39.0 percent of its 3-point attempts.

Isaiah Thomas, as always, has been the key to the offensive surge. He scored 35 points Thursday night against Atlanta, then dropped 32 Saturday night against Charlotte. He accounted for a total of nine 3-pointers during those games while connecting on 47.4 percent of his shots from long distance.

Jae Crowder has also been a strong contributor to Boston’s high-scoring efforts. He averaged 19.5 PPG during the last two games while hitting 65.2 percent of his field goal attempts, including five 3-pointers.

Amir Johnson, Al Horford, Kelly Olynyk and Tyler Zeller will be important defenders tonight for the Celtics. They will be tasked with defending Brooklyn’s man in the middle, Brook Lopez.

Lopez enters tonight’s game averaging a team-leading 20.5 PPG for the Nets. He has been right on that mark, at 20.4 PPG, during Brooklyn’s 11-11 stretch since the beginning of March. Lopez has shot impressively from all over the court during those games, having connected on 48.6 percent of his shots and 37.0 percent of his 3-pointers.

Johnson, Horford, Olynyk and Zeller will have their hands full against Lopez tonight while they defend him down low and on the perimeter. Lopez is a talented scorer on the block who has worked the 3-point line into his arsenal this season; he takes an average of 5.1 3-pointers per game this season and makes 35.0 percent of them.