Celts come up short in overtime

Boston — Maybe there's no avoiding it, but the Celtics were lured — maybe pressured is more like it — into playing Rocket ball Saturday night. And they came within a missed Jaylen Brown 16-footer — and Daniel Theis' inability to get off a shot before the buzzer after rebounding the miss — of surviving anyway.

But the Celtics fell to the Rockets for the second time this season in a 111-110 overtime loss.

Russell Westbrook towered over all with a 41-point, 16-for-24 performance. Forced into playing a similar isolation style in the second half of a game they had led by as many as 17 points in the first half, the Celtics were unable to survive the mode.

The Rockets may be the ultimate small-ball team, but they play, as Brad Stevens likes to say, like a rotation of linebackers.

"They do a good job and they're small -they've got to be physical," said Gordon Hayward.

"They've got some strong, physical guys. They do a good job of that. Wish we had been a little tighter with the ball, maybe a little better on that end to get what we want."

Jayson Tatum (32 points, 9-for-27) and Jaylen Brown (22 points, 9-for-23) had to work a little too hard for their points, and those offensive struggles cost the Celtics down the stretch despite a 26-point, five-trey performance by Marcus Smart.

But even Smart, who got the Celtics off to a great start with 10 points, four assists and three steals in the first quarter, had trouble finding his range. He finished 9-for-22 from the floor, including 5-for-15 from downtown.

Tatum, who has broken the 30-point barrier in five of his last six games, became only the fifth Celtic to average 30 points in a calendar month, joining Isaiah Thomas, Larry Bird, John Havlicek and Paul Pierce. But even Tatum's bid for NBA Player of the Month honors wasn't enough to hold off Houston.

"First of all they switch every screen so they push your catches out," said Stevens. "They're one of very few teams that switches that's hard