The winless Brooklyn Nets may catch a break when they visit the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night.
Although Boston breezed to a 134-99 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Monday, the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum left the game for good with 6:53 to play. It’s unclear if Tatum, who missed most of the 2025-26 season because of a ruptured Achilles, will play on back-to-back nights.
Tatum is averaging a team-high 24 points per contest through Boston’s three games this season.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was non-committal Monday when asked if Tatum would play against Brooklyn.
“I think it’s twofold,” Mazzulla said. “We trust the sports science team that we have. We trust the competition of those guys. At the same time, I think our locker room has been built on one through 15, 16 or 17 being able to impact winning. So it’s just a combination of all those things.
“At the end of the day, we have to do what gives us the best chance to win, and at the same time keep those guys healthy and validate the whole locker room by putting guys in situations where they’ve got to win games for us.”
Meanwhile, defense has been an issue for the Nets, who are allowing an average of 123.7 points per game. Opponents are shooting 50.6% from the field and 40.3% from 3-point territory.
“The biggest (problem) is our communication,” Brooklyn’s Julius Randle said. “We’re just not all on the same page. We’ve got to find a way to communicate better, respect communication amongst each other. If a guy calls something, we’ve got to honor the call.
“But whatever it is, we’ve just got to communicate on that end because we do a lot of switching. So if we’re going to do a little switching, we’ve got to be communicating, and guys have got to know what the other guy’s doing. We’ve got to be on a string. We haven’t been so far.”
The Nets are coming off a 136-109 loss to Indiana on Sunday. The Pacers shot 57.6% from the field, made 21 of 43 attempts from 3-point range, and scored 56 points in the paint.
Brooklyn led 51-49 after a Moritz Wagner 3-pointer with 2:45 left in the first half, but Indiana closed the half on a 16-5 run and scored 37 points in the third quarter.
“The performance we put up after the first quarter was just unacceptable — 112 points in three quarters, you’re not winning basketball games,” Brooklyn coach Jordi Fernandez said. “So it didn’t feel good on either end of the floor.
“(It was) just disconnection, full-on and everything from the spacing to the plays that we run, to the communication on pick-and-rolls, to multiple efforts, to being disappointed with a mistake and dropping your shoulders. All those things are losing things, and now we did not look like a winning team out there.”
Boston has won two games in a row since opening the season with a 121-113 loss to Detroit. The Celtics have beaten the Nets in 11 of the last 12 meetings.
–Field Level Media
