BOSTON -- It wasn't as big as the 3-point shot Keith Van Horn hit or the free throws Antoine Walker missed. In fact, it was nowhere close.

	Jefferson

But the emphatic reverse dunk that rookie Richard Jefferson threw down in the first quarter sent a message: It said that the Nets weren't going away. That they didn't plan on taking this series back to New Jersey, and that everyone -- from Jason Kidd to Anthony Johnson -- was going to contribute.

"Did I need to do a reverse? Did it need to be that hard? No," Jefferson said. "But I needed to express some of my excitement. I dunno. Sometimes you gotta do stuff like that. They don't expect that from me. They think I'm going to lay it up and get back on defense. But sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you have to let them know you're here to play."

Against the Celtics on Friday, Jefferson was just that. Along with Kidd, the rookie out of Arizona was the Nets second leading scorer, contributing 15 points and four rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

When the Celtics erased an 11-point lead late in the first quarter, it was Jefferson who threw down his emphatic reverse dunk. When Kidd was out of the lineup in the second quarter and the Boston defense sagged, it was Jefferson who stepped up and hit a pair of 20-footers.

Later in the second quarter, when the Celtics led by three, it was Jefferson who drove around a Boston defender and threw down another emphatic, two-handed dunk.

Jefferson's eleven points in a 13-minute span of the first half allowed Nets coach Byron Scott to rest Kidd so his legs could be fresh at the end of the game. It isn't that Jefferson and Kidd play the same position, but Jefferson's offensive output meant the Nets didn't need to get the quality possessions that only Kidd can engineer.

"I looked back throughout the playoffs, and the games that I played best were the ones where I got myself off to an early start," Jefferson said. "So that's what I tried to do, get myself rolling early."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com.