Celtics Eliminate Nets’ Latest Superteam With First-Round Sweep

The basketball zings from player to player when the Celtics run their offense, and it found Grant Williams as the first half was winding down in Game 4 of Boston’s first-round playoff series against the Nets on Monday night at Barclays Center.

Williams had oodles of space to line up his 3-pointer, which he swished. The Nets still had time for one last heave before halftime, and the inbounds pass went to Kyrie Irving with 2.1 seconds remaining. But rather than launch a shot from beyond half-court, he simply dropped the ball for a referee to retrieve as time elapsed.

It was a small moment — insignificant, perhaps — but also revealing in its own way. Where was the desperation? Why not seize every opportunity? Sure enough, as the second half played out, the Nets ran out of chances.

The Nets were expecting to vie for N.B.A. championships, and perhaps some day they will. But that day is not now. Another abbreviated postseason appearance ended on Monday when the Celtics defeated the Nets, 116-112, to complete a four-game sweep. It was a fitting finale to a disjointed season for the seventh-seeded Nets, who spent months cycling through a motley cast of characters. They were undone by injuries and absences, by a mishmash roster that could not unearth a coherent brand of basketball, and, finally, by a superior opponent that put its suffocating clamps on two of the planet’s best players.

The Celtics produced the league’s top-ranked defense in the regular season, and they proved it was no fluke against Irving and Kevin Durant. Ime Udoka, the Celtics’ first-year coach, was one of Nets Coach Steve Nash’s assistants in Brooklyn last season, and he applied his institutional knowledge throughout the series.