Nets End Losing Streak At Four Behind Levert's Career-High 51 Points
After losing three of the last four games by four points or less, the Nets come into the TD Garden and upset the 3rd seed Celtics 129-120 on Tuesday night in overtime. Brooklyn is now 2-1 against Boston this season.
It took only 17 shots for Caris Levert to reach his career high of 51 points tonight, and he was very efficient, shooting 65.3% FG and 50% 3FG. What’s even more impressive though is how clutch he was, scoring 37 of his 51 points in the second half of the game, including overtime.
“Huge win. We had a losing streak, we wanted to get rid of that,” said Levert. “They believed in me all night and I just tried to take it one possession at a time.”
Lastly (at least when it comes to Levert), Levert was the reason the Nets even made it to overtime. Brooklyn was down by as much as 21 points in this one, started the second half down 13, and started the fourth quarter down 17, but a 51-point final period in regulation helped the Nets’ effort to win this one come down to one possession. Down 115-118 with 0.2 seconds left on the clock Levert attempted a game-tying three pointer, which he got fouled on. As a result he hit all three free throws to send it to overtime, where he would be the only Nets player to score, dropping 11 points.
Something else that was notable about the overtime period is the lineup that Nets Head Coach Kenny Atkinson went with. Since the Michigan Wolverine clearly had it going offensively, Atkinson went with a very defensive lineup. It consisted of Levert, DeAndre Jordan, Rodions Kurucs, Timothy Luwawu-Cabarrot and Chris Ciozza who was called up from the G League for this game.
“They were hungry man. Those guys put in the work every single day,” said Levert. “They were ready to go as you saw and without them we probably wouldn’t have got back in the game.”
