NEW YORK _ If you had looked up the word "unconscious" in the dictionary Monday night at Barclays Center, the definition would have been accompanied by a picture of D'Angelo Russell. The Nets burgeoning star had the house rocking with 13 points in a 29-7 run at the end of the third period that launched the Nets toward a 109-102 victory over the Celtics.
At one point early in the fourth period, the Nets' lead reached 27 points. The Celtics being the Celtics, they trimmed the deficit to seven on a Jaylen Brown layup with 1:28 left. But the Nets avoided a complete collapse to end a 10-game losing streak against the Celtics that was their longest current slide against any NBA team.
Russell totaled 34 points and seven assists on 13-for-26 shooting, including 7 of 13 from downtown to lead the Nets (22-23). Jarrett Allen had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Rodions Kurucs added 19 points. Jayson Tatum topped the Celtics (27-16) with 34 points, and Brown added 22, but they shot only 40.0 percent from the field.
Once again, the Nets were short-handed after deciding to give Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (adductor strain) one more game to rest even though he practiced Sunday, and Shabazz Napier (right hamstring tightness) joined the injury list. But the Celtics also were missing their starting backcourt as Kyrie Irving was idled by a quad contusion and Marcus Smart was out with an illness.
The matchup against the Celtics, who handed the Nets their worst loss of the season by 21 points a week earlier in Boston came on the heels of a blowout loss Friday in Toronto and preceded a critical two-game trip to Houston and Orlando. As the only home game in the four-game stretch, Nets coach Kenny Atkinson was counting on his team to take advantage.
"It's a home game and I think we have an advantage when we're playing here at Barclays," Atkinson said. "We know what lies ahead. We know we have a difficult schedule. But I think we're just taking it individually game-by-game, trying to really focus. And that's from the beginning, trying to focus on our improvement, take care of the things we need to take care of and hopefully keep playing well."
From the start, it was a defensive struggle as both teams made it tough to find open shots and contested everything at the rim. Russell scored seven points in an 11-4 surge spanning the end of the opening period and the start of the second to give the Nets a 31-25 advantage, but they were clinging to a 46-45 lead at halftime.
Early in the third quarter, the Nets put together a 9-2 burst ending with five straight points from Russell for a 59-52 cushion that was their largest to that point. The Celtics crept back within two points, but that's when Russell went into hyper mode during a 29-7 Nets run that gave them a 90-66 lead at the end of the third period.
First he fed a neat pass to Kurucs for a layup, followed with a 3 from the top of the circle and then fed Allen for a dunk. Russell was just heating up. After a Celtics turnover, he buried a left-wing 3 and followed that with a right-wing 3 that was wiped out when Spencer Dinwiddie was called for a foul on a screen. No matter, Russell laughed it off and drilled a left-wing 3 his next time down.
Russell penetrated to hit two more difficult two-point shots that gave him 13 points during the extended run. Kurucs finished it off with a 3-pointer and an alert catch of a DeMarre Carroll airball that he deposited in the net just before the buzzer. It was unbelievable stuff against one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference with or without Irving.
