Six games into the season, it was clear that Coach Avery Johnson of the Nets was already looking for spots where a win meant more than just a win.
He calls them "breakthrough moments" — seminal games the team can use as a springboard, toward where it thinks it can be.
Thursday night's game against the Boston Celtics was one such opportunity.
"Sure, we've had some wins," Johnson said before the game. "We need breakthroughs."
Brooklyn got just that with its 102-97 win over Boston at a sold-out Barclays Center on Thursday night. The Nets withstood a second-half Celtic rally, and two late baskets by their marquee off-season acquisition, Joe Johnson, provided a fitting performance in one of the toughest early tests of the season.
The Nets had lost eight of their previous nine games against Boston, including a 115-85 drubbing in the preseason that served as a sobering reminder to anyone who forgot that the conference would not be won by hype alone.
Brooklyn's other marquee game so far, against the defending-champion Miami Heat, did not go so well either. The Nets lost by 30 on the road. Afterward, Johnson reminded his team that it had a long way to go to catch the Heat, and he sang a similar tone of caution before Thursday's game when asked if the Celtics are the team the Nets are most eager to emulate.
"When you've been a non-playoff team, it's all of the other teams also that are ahead of us," Johnson said. "It's a lot of teams."
Johnson said he was eager to measure the team's improvement against its preseason matchup against Boston, and certainly the focus and intensity appeared there at the start. Brooklyn began the game scorching offensively, hitting seven of its first nine shots from the field to jump out to an 18-8 lead. They also dominated Boston on the glass, grabbing 15 offensive rebounds in the first half alone.
The hot shooting would inevitably cool (the Nets finished the half 15 for their next 39 from the field), and Leandro Barbosa, who replaced an injured Rajon Rondo (ankle), kept Boston close with a 10-point first half. But Brooklyn still held a 9-point lead at halftime.
In the third quarter, though, their earlier game plan of pushing the pace and controlling the tempo slowly came undone. The Celtics' two aging stars, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, took turns drilling long-range jumpers and tough layups. Pierce scored 11 points in the third quarter, and the defense tightened. With 3:44 remaining in the third quarter, the Celtics took their first lead in the game on a Pierce pull-up.
That lead stretched to five, 79-74, going into the fourth, when the Nets began on an 11-6 run. Jerry Stackhouse hit a 3-pointer from the corner with six minutes left to tie the game at 85-85.
It was tied again, 87-87, with under four minutes to play, when Joe Johnson hit a fall-away floater from the baseline to give the Nets the lead again. Seconds later, he added another pull-up jumper to extend the lead to 4.
Brandon Bass cut it to 1 with a 3-pointer with 50 seconds left, but the Nets held on. Johnson scored 18 points, and Brook Lopez added a key putback with 1:45 remaining to give him a game-high 24.
Williams was quiet in the first half (he took only six shots) but came out more aggressively to start the second, hitting two 3-pointers in the first four minutes. He finished with 23 points and 8 assists.
After its season-opening game against the Knicks on TNT was postponed because of Hurricane Sandy, Thursday's game was the first opportunity for Brooklyn to show off its new digs in front of a national television audience. The Barclays Center was sold out and pulsating.
The crowd gave a resounding "Brooklyn!" chant as time expired, soaking up the first chance to celebrate a hard-fought win over a seasoned opponent. Whether or not it will serve as a breakthrough, only time can tell.
"I think it will be really significant if we go on the road on this trip and win some games," Avery Johnson said.
REBOUNDS
Forward Gerald Wallace missed his sixth straight game Thursday with a sprained left ankle. Reserve guard MarShon Brooks, who missed three games also with a sprained left ankle, returned Thursday and scored 2 in 6 minutes.
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