For the previous two days following the Celtics’ Recreation 2 loss, the basketball world had prewritten the defending champion’s obituary.
With the sequence shifting to Madison Sq. Backyard and the highway crew in a 2-0 gap, percentages from previous NBA seven-game sequence gave the Celtics only a 14.3% probability to advance to the Jap Convention Finals.
The Celtics, nonetheless, jumped out to an early double-digit lead and by no means seemed again in an announcement 115-93 Recreation 3 victory Saturday.
And even along with his crew nonetheless down 2-1, Jaylen Brown has a message to all obituary writers: to hell with these percentages.
“They gotta beat us four times,” Brown mentioned after recording 19 factors, six rebounds and 5 assists whereas logging a team-high +29 in 36 minutes.
“That’s what it comes down to. Not twice, not one, not three. Gotta win four games. There’s a lot of basketball to be played.”
Saturday’s Recreation 3 began the identical manner as Video games 1 and a pair of. The Knicks fell behind by double-digits early and ultimately trailed by 20.
The primary two video games of the sequence noticed the Celtics shoot 25-of-100 (25%) on photographs from behind the arc because the Knicks snuck again into the sport and stole a win.
In Recreation 3, the lead ballooned as much as 31 as a substitute of going within the different route. Brown mentioned postgame the variations Saturday have been the Celtics exiting halftime with extra “urgency,” not “settling,” and never enjoying with complacency.
“Just continue to play basketball all the way through the game. And I think we did that tonight. That’s why the result was what it was.” mentioned Brown, who shot 2-of-6 from deep Saturday.
The truest reply is the Celtics continued to take a bunch of photographs from downtown — they only went via the online Saturday. In Recreation 3, Joe Mazzulla crew’s took the identical quantity of three-pointers as they did in Recreation 2 (40), however managed to transform on 20 of them.
And with an opportunity to tie the sequence up at two video games on Monday, Brown thinks the Recreation 3 success serves as a confidence booster. The star additionally believes there may be one other degree the defending champions can rise to.
“We’ve got open shots. Shooting with confidence, knocked them down,” Brown mentioned. “We got great shooters on this team. Still got to continue to get to the paint, continue to put pressure on the run. And I think we can even shoot the ball even better. [We can] be more aggressive. As we get more comfortable in the series, hopefully we’ll be able to see that.”
