20161123-BOSBKN

Taylor Snow

photos-celtics-vs-nets-nov-23-2016

Photos: Celtics vs. Nets – Nov. 23, 2016

Marc D'Amico

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
addByline("Marc D'Amico", "Celtics.com", "Marc_DAmico");
keysToTheGame();
});

It took only one minute and 21 seconds for the Celtics to turn a close game into a stress-free win Wednesday night in Brooklyn.  The C’s and the Nets went neck-and-neck for the majority of the night until Boston took over during the late stages of the third quarter.

The Celtics, leading 67-64 with four minutes left in the third period, strung together an ultra-quick 9-0 run to build up a 12-point advantage.  The run began at the 3:57 mark of the third and ended at the 2:36 mark.

Al Horford opened up the run with one of his three 3-pointers on the night.  Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson believed the officials missed a call on that play and earned a technical foul, giving the C’s and Isaiah Thomas a free point to make it a 71-64 game.

Each team went scoreless on its next possession before Marcus Smart made the highlight play of the run.  Following a miss by Justin Hamilton, Smart took the ball the opposite way in transition.  He didn’t have much cooking until he reached the free-throw line, where he put a nasty behind-the-back crossover move on Trevor Booker.

As that move came to an end, Smart spotted Tyler Zeller streaking behind him and down the right side of the lane.  All in one motion, Smart wrapped up his move, dropped a perfect pass off to Zeller, and turned around and headed back the other way to the defensive end of the court.  He could to so without raising an eyebrow, because his pass was a no-doubt assist to Zeller for an easy layup.

That play provided the Celtics with a nine-point lead.  Shortly thereafter, Thomas upped Boston’s advantage to 12 with a 3-pointer from the right corner after a superb possession of ball movement by the C’s.

All of that took place within 81 seconds.  Boston’s lead never dropped below seven points from there on out as it held on for a 111-92 win.

Avery Bradley has had himself one heck of a season thus far, but it had been a while since he broke the 20-point barrier – 14 days, to be exact, heading into Wednesday night’s action in Brooklyn.  He ended that streak with a strong performance against the Nets.

Bradley scored 22 points on the night thanks to a 10-for-22 shooting performance.  He was particularly efficient from inside the arc, where he shot 9-for-15 on the night.  Those 15 attempts marked his highest number of 2-point attempts in a game this season.

The shooting guard also had a bounce-back game in the rebounding department, where he has been a pleasant surprise this season.  He totaled just seven boards during his last two games but equaled that number Wednesday night with seven boards in Brooklyn.  His lone offensive rebound came off of his own miss, and he put the rebound home for two points.

Oh, and did we mention his defense?  Bradley came into this season with his eyes set on the Defensive Player of the Year award.  He certainly helped his cause in that conversation by grabbing a game-high five steals against Brooklyn.  That total fell just two short of the Nets’ team total on the night.

Bradley logged nearly 34 minutes of action during Boston’s third straight win.  The team outscored Brooklyn by 20 points while he was on the court.

Marcus Smart on Boston's evolving defense.

keys-to-the-game-celtics-111-nets-92

Keys to the Game: Celtics 111, Nets 92

Pregame – C’s Not Alarmed by Low Scoring Totals

NEW YORK – The Boston Celtics have won three of their last four games, but have done so under unusual circumstances – without scoring 100 points.

Boston’s current four-game stretch marks its longest string of games without topping 100 points since January of 2015.

Coach Brad Stevens, however, is not the least bit concerned by the offensive drought.

Stevens, ahead of Wednesday’s game in Brooklyn, listed off the last four games from an offensive perspective. He stressed that last Wednesday’s matchup with Dallas was the only full game of the last four during which the C’s played sloppily on that end.

Otherwise, the Celtics were shut down by Golden State for just one quarter Friday night (they scored nine points during the third quarter and 79 points during the other three quarters). They put up 94 points Saturday night in Detroit, where no team had previously topped 90.  And then they came up one point shy of 100 during Monday’s 99-93 come-from-behind win in Minnesota.

“I’m not as concerned about it,” Stevens said of the offensive drought. “We’ve got to share the ball a little bit better and give it to the second side a little bit better, especially when we’re struggling. But we’ve executed late pretty darn well.”

Thankfully, Boston’s defense has kept the team alive during this stretch.

The Celtics have the best defensive rating in the league during the last seven games with a mark of 97.0. It’s a shocking improvement on that end, considering the team ranked last in the league during the first seven games with a mark of 112.3.

“We started at the bottom of the mountain, so we couldn’t do anything but go up,” Stevens joked ahead of Wednesday’s 7:30 tip-off at Barclays Center.

The Celtics have a good chance of seeing their offensive numbers rise back up tonight when they take on a Brooklyn team that has allowed 126.2 points per game during its current four-game losing spell.

Boston’s offense is certainly a concern of Nets coach Kenny Atkinson.

“They’re fast, they’re aggressive,” said Atkinson. “They’re one of the top driving teams in the league, so you gotta keep in front of them. But they’re also going to take 35 3-point shots per game.

“I think it’s a little bit of a challenge for us defensively dealing with teams with speed like this, so we’ll see if we can keep them in front of us, yet do a good job at the 3-point line.”

Brooklyn had difficulty containing Boston’s offense on Opening Night when it allowed the C’s to score 122 points, including 97 through the first three quarters.

We’ll see if the Celtics can put up a similar fight and snap their offensive drought when they tip off at 7:30 on the Nets’ home court.

pregame-post-ups-cs-not-alarmed-by-low-scoring-totals

Pregame Post-Ups: C’s Not Alarmed by Low Scoring Totals

addByline("Taylor C. Snow", "Celtics.com", "taylorcsnow");

NEW YORK – The Boston Celtics have owned the fourth quarter so far this season.

The C’s have by far the largest average fourth-quarter scoring margin in the NBA, having outscored their opponents by an average of 4.9 points during the final frame. The next-closest team is Oklahoma City with a plus-3.3.

As a result, four Celtics sit among the top seven players in total fourth-quarter plus/minus rating, including Avery Bradley (fourth with a plus-48), Terry Rozier (fifth with a plus-46) and Marcus Smart (seventh with a plus-43).

The name that sits atop that list for Boston may be surprising.

Brown has accumulated a total plus/minus rating of plus-52 during 81 fourth-quarter minutes. The only player above him is Russell Westbrook, who has a plus-67 during 98 fourth-quarter minutes.

When asked if he was surprised by this stat Wednesday afternoon before taking on the Brooklyn Nets, Brown responded cool, calm and collected, “No. It doesn’t.”

“I don’t pay attention to the numbers,” he added. “I just try to play basketball and let everything else figure out itself.”

Brown seems to be figuring things out pretty well so far, and that’s what’s given Brad Stevens the confidence to throw the young forward into many situations.

“He’s got a lot of things that he’s doing well for a young guy,�� Stevens said ahead of Boston’s morning shootaround session in Manhattan. “He’s got a lot of areas to improve, but I think he’s done a really good job for just turning 20.”

Brown is currently averaging 7.3 minutes per fourth quarter, which is fourth on the team behind Bradley (8.5), Smart (8.3) and Al Horford (7.6). He’s also averaging the third-most points per fourth quarter (4.0) on the team while shooting 50.0 percent from the field during the money period.

The only Celtics players averaging more points per fourth quarter than Brown are veterans Isaiah Thomas (8.6) and Bradley (4.9).

“He’s playing with confidence, and that’s what we want Jaylen to do,” said Bradley. “He’s playing hard and playing without thinking.”

Brown’s fourth-quarter presence is particularly important at this time since fellow swingman Jae Crowder is not yet back to 100 percent after spraining his ankle a few weeks ago.

Crowder said his ankle began to “flame up” during the latter part of Monday’s game in Minnesota, but Brown stepped in during the fourth quarter and contributed greatly on the defensive end, helping Boston climb back from a 13-point deficit.

“It’s great because you never know what type of different matchups we’re going to have, and for him to get that experience right now will help us down the road,” said Crowder. “It’s good to show that so we can put him in the game and [he can] be reliable.”

Wednesday night, the Celtics will face the only team that has outscored them by double-digits during the fourth quarter this season – the Brooklyn Nets.

Brooklyn nearly battled back from a 16-point deficit on Opening Night as it outscored Boston 36-25 during the final period. The Celtics, however, were able to hold on for a 122-117 win.

The fourth quarter has been the best quarter for the Nets this season, as they hold the ninth-best scoring margin during that frame with a plus-1.6 margin.

Brown says the best way to combat Brooklyn’s late-game persistence is to match it.

“They just keep coming," he said. “So we just have to keep coming too.”

If his first 14 games serve any indication, that should not be an issue for Brown Wednesday night.

rookie-brown-making-fourth-quarter-impact

Rookie Brown Making Fourth-Quarter Impact

When a defense slips significantly coaches frequently refer to it as "slippage".

Lately, the Brooklyn Nets have used the term frequently when discussing their many defensive ailments.

Practice time has been limited but the Nets will have had two days to see if drills carry over into a game setting Wednesday night when they host the Boston Celtics and attempt to end an ugly four-game losing streak.

"We're plugging holes right now defensively, leaking in different places,'" coach Kenny Atkinson said. "We're going to have to regroup, get some practice time, get some film time, get our principles back. I keep talking about slippage. We've slipped."

Brooklyn is allowing 113.3 points per game overall but in this skid, the Nets have allowed 126.2 points per game and no fewer than 27 points in the 12 quarters. Besides the points, the Nets allowed opponents to shoot at least 50 percent in three of those games and are among the worst defensive teams in shooting percentage and other areas.

"It's been consistent for the past four games. It's just different teams, but we've been the same,'' center Brook Lopez said. "A lot of it's the same. It's not any one person, glaringly obvious. It's just team-wide, whatever it is. I don't think you can fault our effort or energy. ... It's a team-wide situation we need to figure out."

The slippage has resulted in Brooklyn allowing at least 120 points in four straight games for the fifth time in its NBA history. The last occurrence was Jan. 30-Feb. 4, 1990, when the New Jersey Nets allowed an average of 123 points in losses at Phoenix, Denver, Golden State and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Nets also have allowed 120 points or more in five games this season. It is two shy of last year's total when the Nets ranked 24th in points allowed per game and 29th in defensive rating and one shy of the 2014-15 total, though three of those games reached overtime.

Compounding the sub-par defense is inconsistent offense.

While the Nets are among the leaders in possessions (102.2) per game, they have an offensive rating (104.1) that is in the bottom 10th of the league. It is because the Nets are shooting 44 percent overall and 32.5 percent from 3-point range, numbers that place them in the bottom third of the league.

The latest inconsistency on offense occurred during Sunday's 129-109 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Lopez made his first seven shots when the Nets scored 64 points in the first half but Brooklyn shot 26 percent in the second half.

Meanwhile, the Celtics have won two in a row after rallying from 15 down for Monday's 99-93 victory at Minnesota.

Isaiah Thomas scored 20 points for the 13th time by totaling nine of his 29 in the final five minutes. Al Horford scored 20 points after getting the game-winner Saturday at Detroit and has 38 points since returning from missing nine games with a concussion.

The Celtics lost five times in Horford's absence but it gave coach Brad Stevens an opportunity to look at his depth. It was on display Monday when the Celtics received 16 of their 31 bench points in the fourth quarter.

Boston scored 17 straight points to open the fourth when reserve Terry Rozier scored eight of his 12 points.

"When we get in, we got to either pick up where the first team left off or we got to even play harder than that," Rozier said. "We had a team meeting not too long ago and that's one of the things we said. When we got in there, we just play hard. A lot of credit goes to Al, too, working hard. Just a lot of things, everything worked in our favor once we played hard."

The one negative from Monday was Jae Crowder sitting out the final 16 minutes with left ankle pain. It is the same injury that kept him out for eight games and he might sit out Wednesday. If Crowder sits, Marcus Smart could get the start.

Smart averaged 10 points in Crowder's place and also was credited for sparking Boston's comeback by calling the team out for lack of effort at the end of the third.

"Really it all started at the end of the third, Marcus Smart calling out all of us," Horford told reporters.

The Celtics took the first meeting on Oct. 26 in Boston when Thomas had 25 points and nine assists in a 122-117 win. Boston has won six of the last nine meetings.

20161123‑BOSBKN

Photos: Celtics vs. Nets – Nov. 23, 2016

Keys to the Game: Celtics 111, Nets 92

Pregame Post-Ups: C’s Not Alarmed by Low Scoring Totals

Rookie Brown Making Fourth-Quarter Impact

11/23 Game Preview: Celtics at Nets