San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Celtics outlast Pistons for 11th win in 12 games
This time, the surging Boston Celtics topped the Detroit Pistons.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum led the way.
Brown scored 27 points and Tatum had 26 points and 11 rebounds, leading visiting Boston to a 113-104 victory over Detroit on Saturday.
The Celtics won for the 11th time in 12 games. The lone blemish in their recent surge was a 112-111 home loss to Detroit on Feb. 16.
“Those guys always give us their best shot,” Brown said. “We know we have to give them credit, but we felt like we could play better than that, and we did that in the third and fourth quarters tonight.”
On Saturday, Boston was able to take advantage of Cade Cunningham’s foul trouble.
“That’s a young man right out of college, and we’re already having to blitz him to get the ball out of his hands,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “He has already learned so much at this level that you want to make someone else beat you.”
Cunningham led Detroit with 25 points, but no one else approached 20 points.
“Cade’s a young guy, and he will learn that we need him on the floor,” Pistons coach Dwane Casey said. “We need his offense and we need his playmaking. We don’t need him sitting on the bench with the coaches.” Cunningham, who played only nine minutes in the first half, had eight points in 11 third-quarter minutes without picking up his fifth foul. That was enough to put Detroit up 82-78 going into the fourth, but the Celtics quickly regained the lead with Cunningham on the bench.
“We knew we could win the game, but I thought I hurt us by having to come out of the game so many times,” Cunningham said.
Hawks 127, Raptors 100: Trae Young returned to his All-Star form by scoring 41 points and host Atlanta rode a dominant third quarter to victory over the Raptors.
Young was 17 of 24 from the field, 6 of 6 from the line and had 11 assists in his strong bounce-back game. He shot only 3 of 17 from the field in Atlanta’s 112-108 loss at Chicago on Thursday night, his first game after starting in the AllStar Game.
Fred VanVleet led Toronto with 24 points and nine assists. Precious Achiuwa added a season-high 21 points.
Heat 133, Spurs 129: Bam Adebayo scored a season-high 36 points, Tyler Herro added 27 off the bench and host Miami overcame an early 16-point deficit to beat San Antonio.
Jimmy Butler scored 27 points in 30 minutes to help Miami improved the Eastern Conference’s best record to 40-21. Butler didn’t play in the fourth quarter.
Briefly: Orlando guard Markelle Fultz, who has been sidelined since Jan. 6, 2021, because of a knee injury, will make his season debut Monday, the Magic said on Twitter. ... San Antonio waived guard Tomas Satoransky, who was acquired Feb. 9 as part of a three-team trade. Satoransky is expected to sign with Washington on Monday, ESPN reported . ... New York guard Quentin Grimes is expected to be sidelined for at least four weeks after suffering a knee injury Friday.