The Nets are nonetheless a resilient basketball workforce below head coach Jacque Vaughn, and Mikal Bridges’ mid-range soar shot doesn’t decline.
Those two elements — together with an overdose of zeal displayed by a Celtics workforce up massive early — are how the Nets turned a 28-point first-half deficit on the highway in Boston into an unlikely 115-105 victory in opposition to over the No. 2 seed within the Eastern convention Friday night time.
It matched the most important comeback in Nets historical past and the most important comeback of any NBA workforce this season.
“We just kept fighting, man. We just kept fighting. We got stops, and that was the biggest thing,” Bridges stated in his walk-off postgame interview. “We ain’t gonna stop fighting no matter what the score is. We were down big, but we’re just gonna fight.”
It was a win that snapped a four-game dropping streak, which included a number of blowout losses through the stretch.
Vaughn has stated it twice for the reason that trades that despatched Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns and Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.
The Nets need to be the hardest-playing workforce within the NBA in the event that they’re going to outlive the second half of the season.
For reference: Brooklyn exited the NBA All-Star break with the seventh-strongest remaining schedule in all of basketball.
And after the Nets misplaced by 44 in Chicago and by 24 to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, there was ample proof obtainable to level to the Nets dropping massive to a legit championship contender in Boston to a Celtics workforce recent off an NBA Finals look.
In reality, after the Nets got here again from down 18 to lose on a Trae Young buzzer-beater in Atlanta, the truth of dropping a good sport down the stretch loomed massive Friday night time.
The actuality, nevertheless, set in for a Nets workforce that simply might need discovered its id in Beantown.
If they play exhausting — and if Bridges is as particular as his current scoring scourge may counsel — the Nets have an opportunity to win any sport.
Vaughn has traditionally been in opposition to mid-range jumpers that haven’t come from Durant. His reasoning? The three is a extra environment friendly shot, and Durant’s measurement, size and résumé of legendary effectivity within the mid-range are motive for the exception.
Bridges isn’t Durant — despite the fact that No. 35 was his favourite participant rising up.
The method he has been flattening mid-range jumpers since his arrival in Brooklyn, nevertheless, there could also be a case the 2 are long-lost cousins.
Bridges scored 38 factors and powered Brooklyn’s offense whereas its protection sputtered within the opening minutes. He shot 13-of-22 from the sector and four-of-six from downtown however scored 12 of his 37 factors particularly on pull-up mid-range and foot-in-the-paint soar pictures.
It marked the second highest-scoring sport of his profession after setting a brand new career-high with 45 factors in a victory over the Miami Heat getting into the All-Star break.
Bridges acquired some assist that didn’t come till the second quarter. The Nets trailed 37-15 on the finish of the primary interval and gave up an uninspiring bucket to Celtics star Jayson Tatum, who stole the ball a foot forward of the closest Nets defender and beat all of Brooklyn in a foot race to the basket.
The Nets responded by outscoring the Celtics, 40-27, within the second quarter. Brooklyn held Boston to only 41 factors within the second half.
And they did it due to some well timed taking pictures from Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith, two newfound starters who arrived within the Durant and Irving trades.
The two went scoreless within the first quarter and mixed to complete with 35 factors by means of the remainder of the sport.
The Nets now have a chance to bottle their newfound momentum right into a winnable sport in opposition to a Charlotte Hornets workforce with out star level guard LaMelo Ball (ankle) for the rest of their season.
If Friday night time was any indication of the type of workforce the Nets might be in the event that they fulfill Vaughn’s demand and play more durable than any opponent, retaining their standing as a playoff workforce should still be on the desk — even when the celebs have aligned elsewhere this season.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com