Can Nets beat Celtics, win the Eastern Conference?
The Brooklyn Nets' first round playoff matchup against the Boston Celtics is set in stone.
In what's primed to be one of the most compelling opening-round matchups across the Association, a pair of Eastern Conference foes with championship aspirations — heck, expectations — will go toe-to-toe beginning Sunday afternoon.
It's a tilt that's loaded with star power: Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, with a head-coaching clash between promising neophytes Steve Nash and Ime Udoka.
Brooklyn enters the series as the odds-on favorites to advance to the second round according to several sportsbooks. The Nets rallied Tuesday behind Irving's 34 points and 12 assists to down the Cleveland Cavaliers 115-108 in their play-in match.
Boston, on the other hand, enters the postseason as one of the hottest teams in the league. Despite an incredibly slow start, which brought upon tremendous chatter surrounding the fortitude of the team's two stars, the Celtics took off following the All-Star break.
Led by Brown, Tatum, and Marcus Smart's pesky play, Boston went a league-best 17-5 to close the season, and at one point, held a tie for first place in the Eastern Conference.
One caveat for the Celtics: Energetic big man Robert Williams is currently unavailable for the series, after sustaining a torn left meniscus in late March.
Nonetheless, the firepower is ample, with fireworks just waiting to be fused as we inch closer to Game 1.
So who wins it?
Chris Broussard not only picked the Nets, but he has Brooklyn winning the entire East.
"I'm riding with the Brooklyn Nets to win the East," he saids Wednesday on "First Things First."
"They've got the best duo in the Eastern Conference, I think we can all agree on that," Broussard added. "Giannis [Antentokounmpo] and Khris Middleton have proven themselves, but Kyrie and KD have proven to have championship mettle, as has Patty Mills."
"Those two guys are huge one-on-one players, and in the playoffs, it is so important — when an opponent knows your plays and tendencies — to have a player that despite that knows, ‘You can’t stop me.' That's who Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are."
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The Brooklyn Nets are officially in the playoffs after defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in the play-in tournament. Chris Broussard shares his reaction to the win, and projects who he now thinks will win the East.
Nick Wright found Broussard's take to be flat-out disrespectful to Brooklyn's neighboring competitors.
"You're slighting Giannis and Middleton," Wright said. "And you're slighting either the Sixers or the Heat. Broussard didn't make this pick because he was so amazed by what he saw last night. Last night can't make you more confident in the Nets. Kyrie played one of the best games of his life, efficiency-wise. Even though the numbers weren't great, I thought Kevin Durant was sensational.
"They had a 20-point lead at home in a must-win against a team that Broussard told me yesterday has been terrible for two months. And riddle me this: Six minutes into the fourth quarter, is that a five-point game? And is the announcing crew explaining how Bruce Brown in the third-most valuable Net? That makes you more confident? They play a worse team – far and away – than they will play the rest of the postseason, and it's a five-point game in the fourth."
The Nets and Celtics are very familiar with each other.
It was second-seeded Brooklyn who ended seventh-seeded Boston's season in 2021 with an assertive 4-1 gentleman's sweep. Durant was an unstoppable scoring force during the series, averaging a first-round best 34.3 PPG.
And he's only better when Irving is in the lineup. Over nine games together during last year's postseason, the dynamic duo averaged a combined 54.0 PPG, 14.0 RPG and 7.2 APG. Brooklyn has posted a stellar 116.6 offensive rating in games that both played in, while recording a +9.9 average margin of victory.
The numbers are not quite as flattering for Brown and Tatum, though the sample size is much larger. The pair averages a combined 39.2 PPG, 13.0 RPG and 5.1 APG, while going 25-19 in 44 playoff matchups alongside each other. Tatum averaged 30.6 PPG without Brown during last year's series against the Nets, which included a 50-point showing in Game 3.
Scoring is going to come by the plenty, but which potent pair will rear itself as superior?