Nets vs. Celtics preview: NBA Cup Friday

SB Nation

Still winless at home but filling 99.3% of Barclays Center on average, the Brooklyn Nets fell to 0-7 at the ‘clays Tuesday, losing to the Boston Celtics. The Nets and Washington Wizards are the only teams

that haven’t won a home game yet this season.

The Nets will see the Celtics again and our friends at CelticsBlog have the breakdown on Tuesday’s game from their perspective. The C’s are riding a three game winning streak entering tonight’s contest.

Where to follow the game

YES Network on TV. Gotham Sports on streaming. WFAN on radio. Tip after 7:30 p.m. ET.

Injuries

No Cam Thomas, Ben Saraf, or Haywood Highsmith. Danny Wolf and Nolan Traore are back with Long Island who play Saturday night at Nassau Coliseum vs. the Greensboro Swarm.

No Jayson Tatum.

The game

It would be great if Michael Porter Jr could stop being a misogynistic bozo for once, but that’s apparently too much to ask for.

In the meantime, he’ll look to put another good on court performance together. The 20+ points a game streak is at seven as he had 25/6/2/3 on .500/.500/1.000 shooting splits. Porter Jr has gotten a lot of his buckets on the move and when you’re able to score in a variety of ways, it prevents your team from falling into too deep of a rut. He’s done incredibly well as the lead option on offense and has shown more of his game in this new context.

Rebounding will tell the story of this one. Boston won the battle on the boards by ten on Tuesday night, and their success has been notable in recent weeks. After getting burned on the glass late in games, Boston has gotten more dedicated to improving on that end, as Neemias Queta explained to Noa Dalzell of CelticsBlog:

You lose one or two possessions of each game, individually, and then somebody else loses one too, and then you add up, and it makes a big difference. So, everybody looked in the mirror and just thought about making themselves better. And collectively, we’re all on the same page for that.

Limiting those extra opportunities for opponents makes life a lot easier and as Boston looks to climb up the standings, they’ll need to maintain a high level of focus on the boards so they don’t fall behind. Brooklyn is 28th in rebounding this season and they’re going to need to fix that if they want to get a few more wins on the board.

Derrick White does a little bit of everything. He’s moved up the usage rate ranks due to the absence of Tatum and departure of Kristaps Porzingis. The shooting splits are at career lows, but that should fix itself the more reps he gets this season.

But ultimately, this game will depend on Jaylen Brown. JB turned up after halftime on Tuesday as he scored 23 of his game high 29 points after intermission. Brown does everything you want out of your franchise player, and with a chance to possibly make it to the next round of the NBA Cup with two more victories, he’ll be locked in early.

Player to watch: Anfernee Simons

As the Celtics had to retool this summer due to financial obligations, they were able to acquire Simons from the Portland Trailblazers in exchange for Jrue Holiday. He’s said all the right things since coming over and has settled into a bench role. At 26 years old, he’s young enough to be someone the team might considering keeping around when Tatum returns and the team re-enters contention. He’s a guard that can heat up at a moment’s notice and is a perfectly suitable microwave scorer off the bench.

For Egor Dëmin, navigating bumps in the road is all part of the growing pains associated with being a rookie. He only played eight minutes after halftime on Tuesday, and Jordi Fernandez spoke about that along with some other things in postgame

For the kids, they’ve got to make the most of their minutes and learn valuable lessons along the way. This is the first night of a three game in four nights stretch that will see the Nets go from Boston —> Toronto —> Brooklyn. Demin played in a three in four nights stretch earlier this month, but two of the games were at home in Barclays Center. It’s a lot tougher for a young player going from city to city with minimal rest and this will be a tough challenge for the youngster. We’ll see how he does.