BOSTON (AP) — Jayson Tatum scored 35 points, Jaylen Brown added 22 and Kristaps Porzingis had 21 on Monday night against the team that drafted him to lead the Boston Celtics to a 114-98 victory over the New York Knicks.
Tatum scored 17 in the fourth quarter, when Boston turned a 91-88 edge into a 17-point lead. After missing seven of his first eight 3-point attempts, he hit four straight in the last eight minutes, one on a 4-point play after the Knicks cut the deficit to three points.
Jalen Brunson scored 26 points and Julius Randle had 25 points and nine rebounds for the Knicks, who had won three in a row since opening the season 2-4, including a loss to Boston in their opener. New York was without RJ Barrett, who missed the second night of a back-to-back with a migraine headache.
The Knicks led by eight with 75 seconds left in the second quarter before Boston made three straight baskets, scoring nine of the last 11 points of the half and cutting it to 53-52 on Brown’s 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Boston led by as many as 10 late in the third quarter, but the Knicks closed to 91-88 when Brunson hit a long 3 with eight minutes left. Tatum answered with a step-back 3 and drew the foul, giving Boston a 95-88 lead. Jrue Holiday hit a 3 to make it a 10-point game.
Holiday surpassed 15,000 points for his career with a third-quarter 3-pointer.
Tatum was called for a technical for arguing about a foul call with about five minutes left in the game.
UP NEXT
Knicks: At Atlanta on Wednesday night.
Celtics: At Philadelphia on Wednesday night.
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
(Copyright (c) 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)