With 104 points from Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden, it was the highest-scoring playoff output in Nets history, and gave them a commanding 3-1 first-round series lead with a chance to close the Celtics out in Game 5 Tuesday at Barclays Center. It’s hard to think they won’t do exactly that if they play anywhere near this well again.
The Boston Celtics opened up to full capacity just in time for the local fans to jeer and swear at Kyrie Irving every time he touched the ball.
Irving had 39 points and 11 rebounds to quiet the first post-pandemic full house at the TD Garden, and Kevin Durant scored 42 points to give the Brooklyn Nets a 141-126 victory over Boston on Sunday night and a 3-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.
James Harden added 23 points and a career postseason-high 18 assists for Brooklyn. Game 5 is in New York on Tuesday night, when the Nets will try to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time since 2014.
Jayson Tatum scored 40 points for the Celtics, following up his 50-point effort in a Game 3 victory. But with Jaylen Brown and Kemba Walker out with injuries, Tatum couldn’t save the season on his own.
Marcus Smart had 16 points and nine for the Celtics, who reached the Eastern Conference finals in three of the previous four seasons. This year’s team flirted with a top seed early on and still was in position to host a first-round series well into April before losing 10 of their last 15 games and falling into the play-in game.
After dropping the first two games in Brooklyn, the Celtics were hoping their home crowd would help them make a series of it. Tatum delivered one win in front of a quarter-capacity crowd on Friday, before the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted as of Saturday.
The Bruins had 17,400 for their playoff game against the Islanders on Saturday — the biggest crowd in the NHL this season. The Celtics left several rows around the benches empty on Sunday and officially announced a sellout crowd of 17,226, about 1,500 fewer than the building’s official capacity.
The fans — most of them attending their first home playoff game in more than two years — gave Durant the New York Yankees treatment in pregame warmups, chanting his name derisively and cheering for each missed practice shot. They were even more foul-mouthed toward Irving, who professed his love for Boston and the Celtics before opting out of his contract in 2019 to join the Nets.
But it wasn’t enough to make up for the absence of Walker and Brown.
The Celtics scored the first six points of the game and led by as many as nine in the first but the Nets erased that before the end of the quarter. Durant had 17 in the first and Tatum had 14, setting the foundation for a star shootout.
But the second was all Brooklyn.
Harden threw in 15 points with six assists in the quarter, and Irving scored 11 to help the Nets pull away, turning a 34-33 deficit at the start of the quarter into a 45-37 lead. They made it a 13-point game at the half.
Tatum was scoreless in the second. He responded with 18 points in the third quarter but Durant had 17 to help the Nets open a 27-point lead.
By the middle of the fourth, the fans were chanting for 7-foot-5 Tacko Fall to enter the game.
Nets: Durant’s 17 points were the most in the first quarter for a Net since Kenyon Martin’s 17 in Game 4 of the 2002 NBA Finals against the Lakers. … The Nets had 100 points through three quarters of a playoff game for just the second time in history. They also did it on Friday night.
Kyrie Irving
.jpg) Irving in 2018
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| No. 11 – Brooklyn Nets | |
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| Position | Point guard |
| League | NBA |
| Personal information | |
| Born | March 23, 1992 Melbourne, Australia |
| Nationality | American |
| Listed height | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) |
| Listed weight | 195 lb (88 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school | |
| College | Duke (2010–2011) |
| NBA draft | 2011 / Round: 1 / Pick: 1st overall |
| Selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers | |
| Playing career | 2011–present |
| Career history | |
| 2011–2017 | Cleveland Cavaliers |
| 2017–2019 | Boston Celtics |
| 2019–present | Brooklyn Nets |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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Kyrie Andrew Irving (/ˈkaɪri/; Lakota: Ȟéla, lit. ’Little Mountain’; born March 23, 1992) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was named the Rookie of the Year after being selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the first overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft. A seven-time All-Star and two-time member of the All-NBA Team, he won an NBA championship with the Cavaliers in 2016.
Irving played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils before joining the Cavaliers in 2011. He won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the 2014 All-Star Game. In the 2016 NBA Finals, Irving made the championship-winning three-point field goal to complete the Cavaliers’ historic comeback over the Golden State Warriors. After another Finals appearance in 2017, Irving requested a trade and was dealt to the Boston Celtics. He played as a Celtic for two seasons, after which he signed with the Brooklyn Nets as a free agent in 2019. He has also played for the United States national team, with which he won gold at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. In February 2020, he was elected vice-president of the National Basketball Players Association, replacing Pau Gasol.
Outside of competing, Irving is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and is an active philanthropist to his Lakota people on the reservation. He has written, directed and acted in a number of advertisements as the role of “Uncle Drew”, which became a featured film in 2018. He has starred as himself in Kickin’ It (2012) and has done voicework in We Bare Bears (2016) and Family Guy (2018).
Kevin Durant
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Kevin Wayne Durant (/dɜːrˈænt/; born September 29, 1988), also known simply by his initials KD, is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the University of Texas, and was selected as the second overall pick by the Seattle SuperSonics in the 2007 NBA draft. He played nine seasons with the franchise, which became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008, before signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2016, winning back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018.
Durant was a heavily recruited high school prospect who was widely regarded as the second-best player in his class. In college, he won numerous year-end awards and became the first freshman to be named Naismith College Player of the Year. As a professional, he has won two NBA championships, an NBA Most Valuable Player Award, two Finals MVP Awards, two NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player Awards, four NBA scoring titles, the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, and two Olympic gold medals. Durant has also been selected to nine All-NBA teams and eleven NBA All-Star teams.
Off the court, Durant is one of the highest-earning basketball players in the world, due in part to endorsement deals with companies such as Foot Locker and Nike. He has developed a reputation for philanthropy and regularly leads the league in All-Star votes and jersey sales. In recent years, he has contributed to The Players’ Tribune as both a photographer and writer. In 2012, he ventured into acting, appearing in the film Thunderstruck.
James Harden
 Harden with the Houston Rockets in 2019
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| No. 13 – Brooklyn Nets | |
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| Position | Shooting guard / Point guard |
| League | NBA |
| Personal information | |
| Born | August 26, 1989 Los Angeles, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Listed height | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) |
| Listed weight | 220 lb (100 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school | Artesia (Lakewood, California) |
| College | Arizona State (2007–2009) |
| NBA draft | 2009 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3rd overall |
| Selected by the Oklahoma City Thunder | |
| Playing career | 2009–present |
| Career history | |
| 2009–2012 | Oklahoma City Thunder |
| 2012–2021 | Houston Rockets |
| 2021–present | Brooklyn Nets |
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James Edward Harden Jr. (born August 26, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is one of the NBA’s most prolific scorers and has been called the best shooting guard in the NBA, as well as one of the top overall players in the league.
He played college basketball for the Arizona State Sun Devils, where he was named a consensus All-American and Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2009. Harden was selected with the third overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft by the Oklahoma City Thunder. In 2012, he was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year with the Thunder and helped the team reach the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Miami Heat in five games.
Unhappy with his role playing behind team stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, he refused a contract extension offer from the Thunder, who traded him to the Houston Rockets before the 2012–13 season. In his first season with the team he set or matched several team records and was named to his first All-NBA Team (a third-team selection), as well as his first NBA All-Star team. Over the next seven and a half seasons with the team he would lead the league in scoring three times and assists once, and was named the NBA Most Valuable Player in 2018. During his time in Houston, he was named to eight consecutive NBA All-Star teams and earned All-NBA Team honors seven times, including six first-team selections. In the beginning of the 2020–21 season, Harden was traded to the Brooklyn Nets as part of a four-team trade. With the Nets, he was named to his ninth consecutive All-Star game.
Harden is a two-time member of the United States national team, winning gold medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2014 FIBA World Cup.
