Kings coach John Stevens told Dustin Brown last summer he could still be a 20-goal scorer in the NHL after failing to hit that threshold for five consecutive seasons.
In retrospect
Authentic Mason Rudolph Jersey , Stevens might have undersold what Brown is still capable of achieving.
Brown scored his fourth goal of the game 23 seconds into overtime and the Kings moved into third place in the Pacific Division with a 5-4 win over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.
Brown scored on a one-timer from the left circle to put the Kings one point ahead of Anaheim in the division, with Anze Kopitar setting up his 28th goal of the season. Brown set a career high with his 61st point.
”I thought his game was trending in the right direction last year,” Stevens said. ”I said if you’re not at least a 20-goal scorer again, then I don’t know what I’m doing. And he kind of laughed, but you could see he believed it, too. And he is.”
Brown is the 14th player in Kings history to score four goals in a game and the second to do so this season. Kopitar did it on March 22 against Colorado.
Tobias Rieder also scored, and Daniel Brickley had an assist for his first point in his NHL debut. Jonathan Quick made 23 saves for the Kings’ fourth win in five games.
Drew Doughty had an assist to become the fourth Kings defenseman with 50 in a season. Doughty also set a career high with his 60th point.
Matt Dumba scored for the second straight game, and Nate Prosser had a short-handed goal for the Wild, who will play Winnipeg in the first round of the playoffs.
Ryan Murphy and Eric Staal each had a goal, and Alex Stalock made 23 saves. Mikko Koivu had three assists and Mikael Granlund had two assists.
Brown got his first hat trick since Feb. 25, 2012, by scoring with 49.3 seconds left in the second.
Prosser tied it at 4-4 at 9:24 of the third period after Staal scored his 41st at 5:42 during a delayed penalty to cut the deficit to 4-3.
”There’s a lot of good you can take from this game,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”You battled back against the team that’s the best third-period team in the League. They stayed with the program and consequently got rewarded for it a little bit.”
Brown got the Kings on the board 55 seconds into the game, but Murphy tied the game at 1 when his shot into traffic redirected off Christian Folin and past Quick at 3:12, and Dumba put the Wild ahead at 5:02.
But Brown kept creating scoring chances. He made it 2-all when he scored during a 5-on-3 power play at 7:42
Bills Taron Johnson Jersey , waiting at the front of the net to score off Jeff Carter’s centering pass.
”You just plug away really,” Brown said of his turnaround. ”I got an opportunity this year to play big minutes and be a huge part of the team. That’s probably the more important thing is that I was able to help the team make the playoffs.”
However, Brown was more concerned with how the Kings let the Wild back into the game and what it might portend headed into the playoffs.
”I don’t know what it is in our DNA, but we seem to make it hard on ourselves a lot,” Brown said. ”The thing is we do that and then we come back and win, so the stats probably lie a little bit when you see the record holding a lead after two periods. We try to get heroics every night, which is probably something we need to avoid next week.”
NOTES: Kings F Torrey Mitchell and D Paul LaDue did not play because of flu-like symptoms. The Kings recalled F Jonny Brodzinski and D Oscar Fantenberg from their AHL affiliate on Thursday, but both were scratched against the Wild. … The Wild signed D Louis Belpedio to a two-year, entry-level contract on Thursday. Belpedio, a third-round draft pick of the Wild in 2014 who played college hockey at Miami of Ohio, could make his NHL debut on Saturday.
UP NEXT
Wild: Visit the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night.
Kings: Host the Dallas Stars on Saturday night.
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Before taking the floor, LeBron James stood in the hallway with his teammates outside Cleveland’s locker room and pounded his chest with both hands.
The Celtics got thumped next.
James had 27 points and 12 assists, Kevin Love added 14 rebounds and the Cavaliers looked like a different team on their home court, tightening the Eastern Conference finals with a 116-86 victory in Game 3 over Boston on Saturday night.
Outplayed during two losses in Boston, the Cavs used a three-day break in the series to regroup and re-grip this series. With James leading the way
Derwin James Color Rush Jersey , they built a 19-point lead in the first quarter, pushed it to 30 in the second half and overpowered the Celtics, who fell to 1-5 on the road in the postseason.
Any discussion of Cleveland’s demise is premature. Kyle Korver made four of the team’s 17 3-pointers, six players scored in double figures and the Cavs, who have spent the season seeking chemistry and cohesion, were connected defensively.
”Even when things broke down, we just covered for one another,” James said. ”We made them make extra passes. We made them make extra dribbles. We were flying around, and I just happened to be one of the guys on the floor that wanted to fly around as well.”
Game 4 is Monday night before the series returns to Boston.
Jaylen Brown was in foul trouble all night and scored just 10 for the Celtics after averaging 23 in the first two games. Jayson Tatum scored 18 and Terry Rozier 13 for Boston, which couldn’t match Cleveland in any aspect.
”They took it to us,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. ”Point blank: They just outplayed us.”
Only 19 of a possible 300 teams have ever overcome a 2-0 deficit in the playoffs. James and the Cavs, who previously did it in 2007 and again in 2016 while winning the NBA title, took the first step toward a third comeback.
To return to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year, the Cavs have to win four of five and re-write Boston’s illustrious history. The Celtics are 37-0 when they win the first two games in a series.
The Cavs came in wanting to play faster and be more physical with the younger Celtics, who were the aggressors in Games 1 and 2.
Not this time.
”The toughest team sets the rules
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The Cavs needed more from point guard George Hill after two poor performances (8 points, 1 assist) in Boston. Hill responded with a driving layup to start the game and drained three 3-pointers in the first quarter as Cleveland wasted no time taking control.
Hill finished with 13, J.R. Smith 11 – they were outscored 41-3 in Game 2 – and Cleveland’s supporting cast played so well that James was only on the floor for 37 minutes.
Stevens was confident his team would play better on the road than earlier in these playoffs, but the Celtics were shaky early, committing four turnovers and shooting 2 of 10 while the Cavs opened a 27-11 lead.
James said earlier Saturday the fact he has twice rallied from 2-0 deficits in the postseason offered no relief.
”There’s nothing about the playoffs that’s comfortable until you either win it all or you lose and go into the summer,” he said.
Summer might not be as close as it once seemed.
TIP-INS
Celtics: Seeking to become the sixth No. 2 seed to win the East in eight years. Boston was a No. 4 seed when it advanced to the finals in 2010. … Fell to 3-8 in playoff games in Cleveland, the most by a Cavs opponent at the Q. … Stevens was relieved to learn that Boston legend Bill Russell was recovering after a hospital stay brought on by dehydration. Russell won 11 NBA titles with the Celtics. ”He’s the ultimate basketball winner,” Stevens said. ”The way he impacted winning, the unselfishness of a teammate, what he stood for off the floor – everything about him.”
Cavaliers: James needs six field goals to surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (2,356) for the most in postseason history. … Cleveland has won six straight playoff games at home. … Improved to 14-6 vs. Boston in the playoffs.
DOWN BROWN
The Cavs focused their defense on slowing Brown, and it worked. He was 3 of 8 from the floor and never found his flow after getting two early fouls.
”They were denying me the ball, and when I did get it
Kolton Miller Youth Jersey , it was in positions that I’m not comfortable in,” he said. ”Give credit to Cleveland. They were physical and we settled for jumpers too much.”
DOWN TIME
The long layoff between Games 2 and 3 revived the Cavs.
”It was three days of stewing on Game 2,” Korver said. ”It probably did something good in us. It’s frustrating to have to wait that long for another game. We were able to put in some new things on offense, too.”
ROAD KILL
Before the game, Stevens downplayed his team’s road issues, saying there was a ”small sample size.”
It got a little bigger, and a little more troubling. Still, he won’t focus on Boston’s road woes.
”In my 11 years as a head coach, I probably haven’t talked about road and home five times with our team,” he said. ”It’s about how you play between the lines. Because I think if you start talking about that, then you find excuses in both places. We can’t play like we played tonight no matter where we played. If we would have played in Boston like that, we .