Wade scores 19, Heat hold off Celtics
Miami — Dwyane Wade scored 19 points, Josh Richardson added 18 and the Miami Heat connected on a season-high 18 3-pointers on the way to beating the Boston Celtics 115-99 on Thursday night.
Derrick Jones Jr. scored 14 points, and Justise Winslow finished with 13 points and a career-best 11 assists for the Heat. Miami had 33 assists on 45 field goals.
Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 22 for the Celtics, who scored a season-high 135 points one night earlier in a win over Indiana — and were held under 100 for only the fourth time all season, the first time since Nov. 17.
Marcus Smart scored 18, and Jayson Tatum and Marcus Morris each had 17 for the Celtics. Wade had 12 of his 19 in the second half for Miami, which snapped a two-game slide.
The Celtics trailed for a grand total of 4:04 in their first four games of 2019.
They trailed for 4:14 in the first quarter alone on Thursday, and that set the tone.
Miami outscored Boston 17-4 in the final 3:07 of the first half and took a 61-43 lead into the break — the largest halftime edge for the Heat since November. And an 11-3 run to start the third pushed the lead out to 72-46, which would seem to indicate that Miami was in complete control. Looks were deceiving. Boston scored the next 16 points, with Tatum getting six of them — all from the foul line — and the Celtics were right back in the game. Wade made a 3-pointer to stop the run, and scored eight points in the final 3:47 of the quarter as the Heat took an 83-72 lead into the final 12 minutes.
Notes
Celtics: Boston had its fourth-lowest-scoring first half of the season (43), its worst since scoring 37 in the first half at Portland on Nov. 11. The Celtics had scored at least 50 points in 18 of their last 19 halves entering Thursday . ... Boston has now lost three straight to Miami, the first time that's happened since 2012.