Boston Celtics: 3 keys to victory over the Brooklyn Nets
By Mark Nilon
Key to victory No. 1: Start strong, finish strong
Thus far throughout the Boston Celtics’ first few outings, it has been a tale of two halves.
Back on (re)opening night, the shamrocks came out of the game pretty lackadaisical. Down 20-6 at the 7:25 mark of the game (about five minutes in), it appeared Friday night’s outing had the makings for a complete and utter blowout.
However, as the game progressed, went into the second half, and players began to find their rhythm — although, unfortunately not Jayson Tatum who finished with just five points on 11 percent shooting — the outing actually became tremendously competitive. In the end, had it not been for their slow start to the contest, it is quite possible that Boston could have come away from the outing with a ‘W’, instead of dropping to the Milwaukee Bucks by the score of 119-112.
Despite a win in their followup outing against the Portland Trailblazers, the shoe was on the other foot, as the team found themselves coming out of the gates swinging. Outscoring Rip City by a score of 67-48, Tatum seemed to have put his woes behind him, scoring 21 points in the first half. As the game went into the third and fourth quarters, though, things began to simmer down, as Tatum dropped just 11 more points while the Cs were outscored by Damian Lillard and co. 74-61, ending the game with a too close for comfort final score of 128-124.
This trend even found itself riding into last night’s game against the Heat. Trailing for the entirety of the first half (outscored 63-51), Boston came back hard in the second half — specifically in the fourth –, as they outscored Miami 55-49. Alas, it was too little too late and, in turn, they could not make up for their lackluster start and lost by a mere six points.
Had they played just a bit better in the early stages of the game, perhaps we’d be talking about how the team is riding high on a two game-winning steak themselves, rather than discussing their sub-.500 record.
With this in mind, we’d say that a simpler way for Boston to attain a victory this time around will be consistency throughout the first game; starting off and finishing strong, if you will.