Nets Take Down Celtics

UNIONDALE, NY – After trailing by as many as 23 points in the third and 16 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Maine Celtics stormed back to get within four before ultimately falling to the Long Island Nets, 115-110. 

JD Davison led Maine (2-3) with 23 points, four rebounds, nine assists, four blocks and three steals. Jordan Walsh added 22 points, seven rebounds and three steals. DJ Steward turned in 20 points and four assists. Drew Peterson totaled 12 points, seven rebounds, six assists and a block while Jordan Schakel had 12 points and six rebounds. 

Noah Clowney led all scorers with 27 points, adding 14 rebounds, four assists and two blocks for Long Island (3-2). Jalen Wilson logged 24 points and 11 rebounds and Kennedy Chandler recorded 22 points, seven rebounds and nine assists. Dariq Whitehead scored nine points and grabbed five rebounds. Keon Johnson had five points and 10 rebounds. 

Davison banked in a three for Maine’s first bucket as the Celtics raced out to an early lead while the Nets opened the game shooting 1-10 from the field. With its second-year point guard and a handful of second chance opportunities powering Maine out of the gates, the Nets settled in and went on a 6-0 run to tie it at 12. Long Island made an effort to push the pace off missed shots from the tip, running Maine up and down the floor in the first quarter, after which the Celtics led 28-27 thanks in large part to the hot start from Davison. 

The tides turned strongly in the Nets’ favor once the second quarter began; Davison’s self-created offense was the only reliable scoring option for Maine while the Brooklyn cohort of Clowney, Whitehead and Wilson took control of the game, helping Long Island open the quarter on an 11-0 run. Whitehead’s and-one put the Nets up double digits, though Maine fired back with a 13-0 run to trim the deficit from 14 to one, 52-51. Johnson quelled the run with a straightaway triple ahead of a 6-0 run for the Nets, which rebuilt the lead back to 10 by halftime, 66-56. Both teams went into the intermission with nine made 3-pointers – the Nets converted more than 50% of those looks while the Celtics sat at 39.1% from deep. 

A rough start to the second half forced Celtics head coach Blaine Mueller into two timeouts in the first three minutes of the third quarter. Maine gave up an 11-2 run out of the locker room behind some lackadaisical transition defense and an inability to scrape up much offense beyond Davison. The Nets’ lead grew beyond 20, 81-60 with Wilson’s bucket from underneath the rim as the Celtics went ice cold from range, shooting 2-11 from downtown in the quarter. The only two threes of the quarter helped slim the margin to 13 as Maine put together a solid stretch late in the third, but Long Island took a 94-78 lead into the final frame. 

Maine ripped off a 13-4 run to get as close as seven, 98-91 early in the fourth, threatening to get back within two possessions as the midpoint of the quarter approached. The Celtics ramped up the intensity in crunch time, seemingly at the drop of a hat – Maine collected six offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the final quarter, dominating the interior no matter whether James Banks III or Kylor Kelley was manning the middle. Walsh connected with Steward for a lob that cut it to five, 102-97, just inside five minutes to turn what could’ve been a blowout into a tight contest. 

Maine crashed the glass, set good screens, collected loose balls, and worked for all the little things to try and swing the momentum in its favor. With the Nets maintaining a six-point lead, 110-104, the Celtics generated a couple of prime opportunities to get within a possession but came up short on both. Long Island iced the game at the line down the stretch, going 9-10 from the stripe as a team inside two minutes to earn a hard-fought victory. 

The Celtics and Nets round out a two-game set in Long Island on Thursday, Jan. 10 at 7:00 PM before Maine heads home for a back-to-back with the Indiana Mad Ants this weekend.