BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The Brooklyn Nets led the Boston Celtics by 17 points at one point in Wednesday night’s Game 2 matchup, but they gave it all up as the Celtics went on to win 114-107.
The Nets may be the 7-seed in the Eastern Conference, but they were expected to make some serious noise in the playoffs, as they have experienced, veteran stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
But it was those stars who couldn’t get anything going offensively in Game 2.
Adam Armbrecht of the Locked On Nets podcast joined Peter Bukowski on Locked On Today to discuss what went wrong for Brooklyn in the second half against the Celtics.
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“Kevin Durant packed up his professional game and just put it into storage a little bit prematurely,” Armbrecht said on Locked On Today. “There’s a lot of things you can point to, Boston has obviously played a strong first two games, but I don’t think they’ve been perfect by any stretch of the imagination. When things look they’re going well in the first half, you always have to have it in the back of your mind when your superstars aren’t having good games.”
Kyrie Irving went for 39 points in Game 1, but was virtually uninvolved in Game 2, scoring just 10 on 4-for-13 shooting. Kevin Durant had 27 points in Game 2, but many came on free throws, as he went just 4-for-17 from the field. That’s a second straight game that he’s struggled mightily offensively.
“On the one hand there’s that taxing nature of how Boston’s going to play you. They have multiple players they can throw at you, they have blitzing defenses, and Kevin Durant’s not the biggest guy in the world. That being said, Kevin Durant’s been around the NBA. It’s not like he’s never played a physical defense or been in a tough, physical matchup. You can look at a lot of plays where he looks careless with the basketball, like he doesn’t have quite the touch with his hands.”
Armbrecht said the frustration from Durant has compounded itself into poor decision making.
“This isn’t taking the credit away from Boston, but i put these first two games solely on the shoulders of Kevin Durant,” Armbrecht said. “He’s far too good of a player to be succumbing to whatever Boston is throwing at him.”
In the fourth quarter, the Nets couldn’t get anything going as they let go of the lead and let Boston run away from there. Armbrecht said this is where it gets tricky with the star power that’s on the Nets with Irving and Durant and the under-utilizing of veteran players like Goran Dragic, who played just 20 minutes on Wednesday.
“When you look at coaching and what you can do better to give yourself better opportunities, do you find yourself in the fourth quarter saying we’ve got to get looks for everyone other than Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving?” Armbrecht said.
“That’s the hard part because 99 times out of 100, even after a game like this, you’re still going to say put the ball in my superstars’ hands and I’ll live with the results,” Armbrecht continued. “We know the NBA is driven on superstar talent and I think the Nets probably sacrificed five or six possessions in that fourth quarter at the hands of two players that were struggling mightily.”