BOSTON — The Celtics crowd, much like their team, showed up Wednesday night feeling good about themselves, maybe even vanquished in light of Kyrie Irving’s $50,000 fine.
So they increased the volume of those chants, got a little quiet when Brooklyn took an early lead and held it for three quarters, and erupted when the Celtics, by virtue of a 20-4 fourth quarter run, walked off with a 114-107 Game 2 win over Brooklyn. The result is a 2-0 lead in their first round series.
The Celtics started the night anticipating a rebound performance by Kevin Durant, and instead got Bruce Brown, Goran Dragic and Seth Curry hitting most of the big early shots. But Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, struggling with 12 points each after three quarters, both had a big hand in the aforementioned run.
Brown finished with 22 points, Tatum 19, and both were part of a defensive clamp-down that held Durant scoreless in the fourth quarter until the last 1:53. The Nets star finished with 27 points on another rough shooting night — 4 for 17. Irving was quiet most of the night with 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting.
Brooklyn had led by as many as 17 points in the second quarter.
Tatum’s deep 3-pointer, his seventh straight point, capped a 20-4 run for a 108-96 Celtics lead with 2:07 left. Durant scored his first four points of the quarter — all from the line — only for Marcus Smart to hit from 12 feet with 1:09 left for a 10-point lead.
The Celtics tied the score twice in the third quarter but, thwarted the second time by a deep Patty Mills 3-pointer set up by Brown’s offensive rebound, went into the fourth trailing by a 90-85 score. Durant had just scored 11 of his 20 points from the line, and Tatum (12 points, 3 for 13) and Brown (12, 5 for 12) were lost in one of their worst collective nights of the season.
Curry opened the fourth with a 20-footer, Payton Pritchard answered from 15, and Brown struck twice, with a 3-pointer and a game-tying drive at 92-92.
Pritchard then uncorked from downtown for the Celtics’ first lead of the game at 95-92. Brown drove, Irving finally answered by bouncing in a drive, and Brown came right back from 20 feet for a 99-94 lead, extending the run to 14-2.
The run peaked at 23-4 for a 108-96 lead, with Tatum capping it dramatically with two free throws followed by a spinning drive off the baseline and a deep 3-pointer over Dragic.
As a sign of the times, Grant Williams was the Celtics’ leading scorer with 13 points in an offensively-squeamish first half that found the Nets with a 65-55 lead, helped in part by Dragic’ 13-point second quarter. Tatum and Brown had seven points each, with neither in a groove.
That cold vibe changed quickly enough, with Al Horford’s 3-pointer triggering a 10-3 Celtics run early in the third that cut the Nets lead to five points, then coming back with another bomb that cut it to four (72-68) before Tatum’s transition dunk off a Brown steal cut it to two.
Williams’ put-back off a missed Tatum free throw was the big play in a 7-0 run that tied the game on a Daniel Theis layup, and the Celtics tied it again at 81-81 on two Smart free throws.
The Nets, though, lasted long enough for a 90-85 lead.
