Six years ago today, the Brooklyn Nets avoided playoff elimination
By Sameer Kumar
Down 3-2 to the Toronto Raptors on May 2nd, 2014, the Brooklyn Nets responded at home and forced a Game 7. Let’s take a look back at that game.
Despite outscoring the Toronto Raptors 44-24 in the fourth quarter of their previous game, the Brooklyn Nets still lost that game and ended up going back home down 3-2 in the series.
With Deron Williams losing his feel for the game the last couple of games following a down season to his standards, that led to frustration within the fanbase and ultimately led to a fan posting a missing poster on a pole outside the Barclays Center with Williams being the subject.
Williams, however, snapped out of his funk that night and came out with 23 points including four threes, five rebounds and four assists to lead the Nets to a 97-83 victory; looking like he was back to himself despite an ankle injury scare in the third quarter.
Brooklyn never trailed in the game and led the Raptors by double-digits from the 3:21 mark in the first quarter all the way to the final buzzer.
The Raptors started to make some noise in the fourth quarter though, as they went on a 14-2 run to get within 10 after being down by 22 points entering the final period.
Toronto wouldn’t get any closer than that, however, as Williams sank a three-pointer with 1:13 left in the game to all but send his team to a season-saving victory.
Joe Johnson added17 points, Kevin Garnett chipped in 13 points and five rebounds and Paul Pierce had 12 points, six rebounds and three assists.
The energy in the building was electric the entire night with “Brooklyn” chants echoing through the arena and the energy of the players on the court being felt by fans in the crowd. This was by far one of the most exciting games in Brooklyn Nets history.
Fans at the arena were also treated to seeing Drake get trolled on the jumbotron as they photoshopped a Nets jersey on the famous musician and notable Raptors fan.
Overall, this win set the table for the black-and-white team from Flatbush to go north of the border and take care of business in front of a hostile crowd in a game that went down to the wire.