Tatum pours in 38; Celtics make it 8 in a row
CELTICS 105, HAWKS 95
BOSTON — Jayson Tatum scored 38 points and led a third-quarter surge that sent the Boston Celtics past the Atlanta Hawks 105-95 Sunday for their eighth consecutive win.
Tatum also had 10 rebounds. Robert Williams added 10 points and 14 boards, Jaylen Brown scored 17 points and Marcus Smart had 13.
“We’re just cooking right now,” said Tatum, who had 16 points in the third as the Celtics outscored the Hawks 42-23 in the period.
Trae Young had 30 points and 10 assists to lead Atlanta, keeping the Hawks within range until the final few minutes of the fourth quarter. Bogdan Bogdanovic finished with 26 points and Clint Capela pulled down 17 rebounds for the Hawks, who lost for the fourth time in five games.
Atlanta held a 10-point lead at halftime but unraveled quickly in the third quarter.
“I thought in the third quarter, we got distracted by the officiating. They got into the penalty early and they had a 42-point quarter,” Atlanta Coach Nate McMillan said. “I thought that was the difference in the game. We just were not able to recover from that.”
The Celtics, who lost their first two against the Hawks this season, trailed 55-45 at halftime and allowed an early basket by Young to start the third.
Boston responded with a 12-0 run and dominated the rest of the period. The Celtics made 13 of 18 shots in the third. Tatum hit a pair of three-pointers late in the period and adding a dunk with three seconds remaining to put the Celtics up 87-78.
Tatum wasn’t done. After the Hawks pulled within 89-84, Tatum hit a turnaround jumper, then another three-pointer to stretch the lead back to 94-84 with 6:32 left and prompted the Hawks to call a timeout.
The break didn’t slow down Boston, which forced a miss by Young under the basket and got another three-pointer by Grant Williams from in front of the Atlanta bench. The Celtics were able to hold a wide lead the rest of the way.
Although the Hawks held Boston to only 18 points in the fourth, Atlanta scored just 17 in the final period.
“We played really good defense until that third quarter,” Young said. “We’ve just got to stay solid throughout the four quarters and we’ve got to do a little bit better offensively, especially down the stretch.”
TIMBERWOLVES 129, PACERS 120
INDIANAPOLIS — Anthony Edwards celebrated
a milestone Sunday by scoring 37 points and leading Minnesota to a victory over Indiana.
Edwards became the fourth-youngest player in NBA history to reach the 2,500-point mark when he made his first basket of the game. The second-year forward is 20 years, 192 days old. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker are the only younger players to achieve the feat.
The Timberwolves snapped a two-game
losing streak overall and a three-game losing streak at Indiana as they compete to finish among the top six in the Western Conference and avoid the play-in round.
Oshae Brissett had a season-high 22 points and matched his career high with 13 rebounds for Indiana, which has lost six in a row.. Tyrese Haliburton added 22 points and 16 assists, one short of tying his career high in just his second game with the Pacers.