The Brooklyn Nets could almost taste their first win. With just 2.3 seconds left, Jordi Fernández’s side led by one point at TD Garden and needed only one good defensive stop to pull off a surprise against the Celtics. But then Jayson Tatum got the ball. And their chances of winning vanished in an instant.
The forward caught the pass and, despite having two defenders on him, had no trouble turning towards the middle and getting to the free-throw line. Once there, there was nothing Keon Ellis’s attempt at a contest could do. The buzzer sounded with the ball in the air, and moments later it went through the hoop to confirm that Tatum had reached 40 points, that Mazzulla’s side took the win and that the Nets will have to keep rowing to open their account, however good the feelings may have been.
Jayson thus hit his seventh game-winning basket with three seconds or fewer on the clock in the last seven seasons, which, according to the NBA’s own data, makes him the player with the most game winners in that period. But although several of those shots came in big moments or against big opponents, this one, the first since returning from his Achilles injury, undoubtedly holds a special place.
“It was a wonderful feeling,” he admitted. “It’s great to be able to do things I used to do before the injury and to share this moment with my team-mates on the court.”
However, no less heroic was the way the Nets had managed to force overtime. Mikel Brown Jr. had his first big night in the NBA, scoring 17 points, and came close to being the one who grabbed all the headlines with the three-pointer that made it 117-117 with two tenths of a second left and forced the Celtics to fight for five more minutes.
MIKEL BROWN JR. IN THE CLUTCH. WE ARE HEADED TO OVERTIME IN BOSTON 🍿 https://t.co/ZkzY6oLJNk
— NBA (@NBA) October 28, 2026
But his heroics, at least this time, went to waste in the cruellest way possible.