Celtics complete sweep of Brooklyn
Celtics 116, Nets 112: Jayson Tatum scored 29 points, Jaylen Brown had 22 and host Boston completed a fourgame sweep of Brooklyn, becoming the first team to reach the second round of the playoffs with a victory Monday night.
Marcus Smart added 20 points and 11 assists for the No. 2-seeded Celtics, who made easy work of what was thought could be a tough series.
Boston will wait for the winner of the series between Milwaukee and Chicago.
The defending champion Bucks hold a 3-1 lead in that series.
Kevin Durant had 39 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, breaking free after the Celtics had defended him well in the first three games.
But he couldn’t get the Nets the win they needed to extend what instead goes down as a massive failure of a season.
Expected to be an NBA Finals contender, the Nets needed a strong finish just to grab the No. 7 seed.
Seth Curry scored 23 points for the Nets. Kyrie Irving, whose unavailability for home games much of the season because he isn’t vaccinated against the coronavirus contributed to the Nets performing so far below expectations, had 20 points.
Raptors 103, 76ers 88: Pascal Siakam scored 23 points, Precious Achiuwa had 17 and Toronto forced a return to Canada for Game 6 in their Eastern Conference first-round series against host Philadelphia.
Once holding a 3-0 series lead, the 76ers are headed back north.
The Raptors have won two straight in the series and jumped all over injured Sixers center Joel Embiid and ineffective James Harden to make Thursday night’s game a necessity.
Embiid had 20 points and 11 rebounds playing with a thumb injury. Harden scored 15 points on 4-of-11 shooting.
Sixers coach Doc Rivers is dragging the weight of ignominious NBA history with him through customs.
Rivers, who led Boston to the 2008 championship, is the only coach in NBA history to blow three 3-1 series leads. The Magic lost to Detroit in the 2003 Eastern Conference first round; the 2015 Clippers blew the series to Houston in the Western Conference semifinals; and in 2020, the Clippers lost to Denver in the West semifinals.
The next season, Rivers was in Philly – and the Sixers lost three games at home as the No. 1 seed and were eliminated in the second round.
The nerves in Philly are suddenly as tight as the rims.
The Sixers had a miserable first half. They finished with 10 turnovers and shot 35% from the floor.