NEW YORK — Jayson Tatum had 29 points, Jaylen Brown had 22 and the Boston Celtics wrapped up a four-game win over the Brooklyn Nets to become the first team to advance to the second round of the playoffs with a 116-112 win Monday night.
Marcus Smart added 20 points and 11 assists for the No. 2-seeded Celtics that made what was perceived as a difficult streak easy to pull off. Between Milwaukee and Chicago, Boston is waiting for the winner of the series. Defending champion Bucks leads 3-1 in this series.
Kevin Durant had 39 points, nine assists and seven rebounds and broke free after the Celtics defended him well in the first three games. But he failed to give the Nets the win they needed to extend what is instead considered a massive failure of a season.
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The Nets, expected to be an NBA Finals contender, needed a strong finish to grab the No. 7 pick.
Seth Curry scored 23 points for the Nets. Kyrie Irving, whose unavailability for home games for much of the season because he is not vaccinated against the coronavirus has helped the Nets perform below expectations so far, had 20 points.
The Celtics were under .500 at the halfway point in their season but went 31-10 from there, with Tatum emerging as the leading scorer on one of the NBA’s best defensive teams.
That defense limited Durant to just 19-for-52 shots with 17 turnovers in the first three games and gave him a hard time even when he finally got more shots on Monday. He was just 13 of 31 out of the field, 3 for 11 from behind the arc.
He lost in the first round for the first time since 2010 with Oklahoma City, the first playoff series of his career. He had won nine consecutive first-round streaks.
Tatum had 12 points in the third quarter and the Celtics took a 90-75 lead in the final seconds of the quarter. But he benched with a fifth foul at 8:17 and the Nets made a push that put them on three points about three minutes later.
Tatum fouled the Celtics, who led 2:48 at six, to play. Irving made a 3-pointer and Durant hit to cut it to 109-108, leaving 1:28. But after a Brown basket, Durant was only able to grab a free throw and the Celtics charged down the floor while Al Horford returned Smart’s miss to make it 113-109 with 13 seconds remaining.
The Nets were hoping Ben Simmons could make his debut for them in Game 4, but he was ruled out Sunday with more back pain troubling him not long after arriving in a midseason trade with Philadelphia.
Tatum didn’t have a basket in the first quarter but got going quickly in the second with two 3-pointers and another knight. Durant kept the nets close and they were only 45-44 down after finding Curry in the corner for a 3-pointer with 3:29 to play. But Grant Williams made three 3-pointers from there until the end of the half, the last giving Boston a 58-50 lead.