BOSTON — The Nets shot a scalding 53.8 percent against the Celtics’ league-leading defense, and a solid 11 of 24 from behind the arc. But Boston’s constant switching and denying Kevin Durant the ball led to far too many Brooklyn miscues, gaffes that cost the visitors Sunday’s first-round Game 1. 

“We have too many turnovers. Definitely the first half I think we had 13. In the second half we did much better job, only four,” Goran Dragic said. “We need to stop fouling. We’re in bonus too quick and it’s tough to play defense like that. 

“You put them on the line. … But at the end of the day we had our chances. In the first half we still had our chances and unfortunately we didn’t convert. 

“First of all when we just made silly mistakes. We had ball under our basket and nobody was there to … those are easy mistakes. Those are like my kids when they’re playing. We just have to take care of the easy ones. But then we had our chances. We just have to bite down and get a stop and unfortunately we didn’t.” 

Kyrie Irving poured in a game-high 39 points, and Durant added 23, but the Celtics didn’t wait for Durant to get the ball and send doubles, fronting him and denying him constantly as he shot 9 of 24 with a six turnovers. 

Dragic — who missed the last five games of the regular season with COVID-19, and returned for the play-in — had 14 points off the bench with five assists and a team-high plus-17. Nic Claxton had 13 points, eight boards and three blocks, but no other Nets cracked double figures. 

“[Irving] did his job, but we have to help him,” Dragic said. “It’s not individual sport, we have to play as a group. Especially defensively, help each other and offense we have two of the best players in the world who can score. 

“So we just have to support those two guys, play maybe with more energy, box out, get those rebounds and try to play faster so we can go in the open court and not to see that set defense that Boston was playing.” 

Boston hasn’t ruled out center Robert Williams III for the rest of this first-round series, but the Celtics are hoping he could return down the road like a potential Game 6 or 7, if at all. 

“Progressing nicely, doing a little more every day, on court work now. As I’ve said all along we’re preparing to play a series without him and understanding that if we’re surprised by something, great. But we feel we have enough with what we have now,” coach Ime Udoka said. “He’s a huge piece of that, but not thinking he’s coming back anytime sooner than the time frame that they gave us.” 

The Nets started Irving, Durant, Seth Curry, Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond. 

With the Nets starting the postseason Sunday night, their regular-season games averaged 78,000 total viewers on YES Network. That’s a 95 percent increase from the 2018-19 season, which was the last pre-pandemic season, when they averaged 40,000. 

It’s the Nets’ best since 2013-14, and roughly triple their numbers from when general manager Sean Marks took over.