Celtics sweep Nets out of the playoffs
Jayson Tatum scored 29 points, Jaylen Brown had 22 and the Boston Celtics completed a four-game sweep of the Brooklyn Nets, becoming the first team to reach the second round of the playoffs with a 116-112 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.
The Celtics showed no fear of the Nets, winning on the final day of the regular season instead of losing to fall down the standings and avoid them.
Turns out, there was no reason to worry.
“It's funny to us, because we don't duck and dodge anybody,” Smart said. “We knew what we were going to come in here and do.”
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.
“A lot of stuff that may factor into why we lose, but they were just a better team,” Durant said.
The Celtics were under .500 at the midpoint of their season but went 31-10 from there, with Tatum emerging as the scoring star on one of the NBA's best defensive teams.
That defense limited Durant to just 19-for-52 shooting with 17 turnovers through the first three games and made it tough for him, even as he finally got more shots to drop Monday. He was only 13 of 31 from the field, 3 for 11 behind the arc.
He lost in the first round for the first time since 2010 with Oklahoma City, the first playoff series of his career. He had won nine straight first-round series.
Tatum had 12 points in the third quarter and the Celtics opened a 90-75 lead in the closing seconds of the period. But he went to the bench with a fifth foul with 8:17 remaining and the Nets made a push that got them within three points about three minutes later.
Pascal Siakam scored 23 points, Precious Achiuwa had 17 and the Toronto Raptors forced a return home for Game 6 in their Eastern Conference firstround series against Philadelphia, beating the 76ers.
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, who led Boston to the 2008 championship, is the only coach in NBA history to blow three 3-1 series leads.
Luka Doncic had 33 points and 13 rebounds in his first home playoff game coming off a calf injury and the Dallas Mavericks routed the Utah Jazz for a 3-2 lead in their firstround playoff series. After the first four games were decided by eight points or less, Game 5 was never really close, thanks to Utah's nearly six-minute scoreless drought in the second quarter that fueled a 22-4 Dallas run on the way to a 52-36 halftime lead.
Jordan Clarkson scored 20 points and Rudy Gobert added 17 points and 11 rebounds in the lowest-scoring game for the Jazz since they lost by 50 at Dallas (118-68) on Nov. 14, 2018. They were 3 of 30 from 3-point range (10%) and shot 38% overall.