GAME 3
Nets 94
Celtics 76
BOSTON – Sticks and stones may break their bones but names – and Antoine Walker – will never hurt the Nets.
The Nets walked into the FleetCenter snake pit here last night and were greeted with venom-laced chants, jeers and name-calling. So they responded with a 94-76 dismantling of the Celtics, who again received virtually nothing from their No. 2 guy, Walker. The victory gave the Nets a suffocating 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series they can end Monday with a victory.
“We defended from beginning to end and we ran our offense to perfection,” said Kenyon Martin (25 points, 7 rebounds), who again stifled Walker.
“They’re a hell of a defensive team, make no mistake,” said Celtics coach Jim O’Brien. “We just have to win a game to get it back to New Jersey and make it interesting.”
By the middle of the third quarter, when the Nets were ripping off 15 straight points amid an 0-of-13 Celtics shooting famine, the fans and the Celtics were getting testy. The fans booed the Celts, who responded with some frustrated play. Then in the fourth quarter, one fan was restrained after trying to go after another fan who was heckling Walker.
No wonder virtually all the Nets’ wives and family stayed away.
Walker, who scored 15 points and shot 6-of-17 (OK, he had 15 rebounds, but he was rancid), drew a technical after being tied up by Martin. As Jason Kidd (9 points, 11 assists, 9 rebounds) stepped to the line, the crowd renewed a chant of “Wife-beater” that it used earlier in the game. No matter. Kidd hit the free throw.
Paul Pierce (23 points, 10 rebounds before leaving at 6:01 with a strained right leg muscle) again proved he could not do it by himself. Tony Delk was his most reliable support with 16 points.
By the end of the third quarter, the Nets led, 76-56, and thoughts wandered back to last year’s historic Game 3 collapse. And it got a little hairy when the Celtics scored the first six points of the fourth quarter, but Richard Jefferson scored two of his 20 points with a pair of free throws (the one area where the Nets were seriously lacking at 22-of-36) and Lucious Harris followed with a 3-pointer at 9:22 to push the lead back to 81-62.
Jefferson continued his sensational shooting with 6-of-9 and is now 46-of-77 (.597) and averaging 19.8 in his last six games.
Scott was greeted by a loud chorus of boos when he walked to his seat with about a minute-and-a-half left on the pregame clock. Immediately, there were chants of “Byron [sips through a straw].”
And Kidd, as expected, was a prime target of the boo-birds.
So the Nets responded the best way they knew how – by shutting down the Celtics and controlling the early tempo. They were aided by nine – count ’em, nine – Boston turnovers in the first quarter alone.
