NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets welcomed the Boston Celtics to Barclays Center on Tuesday for the front end of a back-to-back and lost 118-110.
For the Nets, Mikal Bridges had 27 points and three assists while Cam Thomas had 26 points and four assists. Lonnie Walker IV had 15 points off the bench and Nic Claxton had 10 points.
For the Celtics, Jayson Tatum had 41 points and 14 rebounds while Jaylen Brown had 19 points and four assists. Al Horford had 16 points and Derrick White had 16 points.
In the first half, both teams played each other to a standstill in the first quarter as while Jayson Tatum was busy going off, so was Mikal Bridges and Lonnie Walker IV. However, the second quarter saw the Celtics created a big lead thanks to Tatum continuing his offensive explosion along with Boston employing a Hack-A-Clax/Simmons strategy, forcing Brooklyn to bench Simmons towards the end of the half.
In the second half, the Nets made quite the rally as they found a way to stifle Boston’s offense enough to cut a 23-point deficit to eight points while Thomas and Bridges went off. The Nets weren’t able to complete the comeback because of Tatum still scoring enough to keep Brooklyn at bay, but the Nets did a good job of giving the effort that it took to come back as much as they did.
Here are your Nets player grades following Tuesday’s loss: