The Celtics and Nets confronted off contemporary off final season’s All-Star break and a jaw-dropping 136-86 Celtics victory left Brooklyn’s mouth so bitter that the group fired then-head coach Jacque Vaughn 5 days later.
Quick-forward eight months, Boston is standing tall as reigning champions, and Brooklyn has its first probability at redemption for that horrendous Feb. 14 journey to TD Backyard. The Nets started getting ready to face the Celtics on Thursday for the primary time since enduring that 50-point beating and the crew nonetheless hasn’t forgotten about that dreadful efficiency that turned simply one in every of many Boston unleashed amid its 64-win common season.
“Yeah, however they’ve been beating the (expletive) out of lots of people,” Dorian Finney-Smith mentioned, per Bridget Reilly of the New York Publish. “I feel that was off a back-to-back proper earlier than the All-Star break. (There have been) a number of issues occurring final 12 months, however none of that issues. Received a complete new crew, a complete new system. However yeah, I positively spoke about it as a result of that was most likely the craziest sport I’ve been part of and simply because we performed them so effectively the evening earlier than and so they simply received us out of there. They (have) shooters, received a bunch of capturing, (going to) shoot a bunch of threes. They’re going to crash the glass. It’s going to be a very good sport. An ideal problem.”
Boston hasn’t seen a number of change concerning its roster, solely saying goodbye to Svi Mykhailiuk and Oshae Brissett this previous offseason, that means the Nets gained’t be seeing a drastically totally different Celtics crew. Certain, Kristaps Porzingis and Jaylen Brown (left hip flexor) are dominated out whereas Luke Kornet is listed as uncertain (proper hamstring tightness), however when it got here to overcoming undermanned conditions, the Celtics flourished final season. Challenges weren’t all that difficult, whether or not within the common season or playoffs.
However, Brooklyn will enter Friday evening’s battle with a modest 4-4 begin to its marketing campaign — rating fourth within the Japanese Convention — absolutely conscious of what to anticipate on the opening tip.
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“Their crowd (is) in it. Boston followers, they loyal,” Finney-Smith, per the New York Publish. “They usually a historic group. So, they (are going to) be there. They get loud in there. However I really feel like that’s once we come shut as a crew, once we on the highway.”
