Jaylen Brown on Thursday scored 37 points as the Boston Celtics unleashed a dominant offensive performance to blow past the Phoenix Suns 127-112.
Boston’s big three of Brown, Jayson Tatum and Al Horford combined for 87 points in a dazzling performance against a Suns team looking to avenge last Saturday’s 117-107 home defeat to the Celtics in Arizona.
Tatum finished with 26 points, while Horford weighed in with 24 to secure a victory that edges Boston closer to securing the NBA Eastern Conference’s top seeding in the post-season.
Photo: AP
The Celtics rained down a barrage of three-pointers on the Suns, converting 25 of 50 attempts from outside the arc. The Suns by contrast shot 11 of 31 from three-point range.
Devin Booker led the Suns scorers with 23 points, with Bradley Beal making 22, and Kevin Durant and Grayson Allen finishing with 20 apiece.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla saluted Brown’s display.
“I think he’s really taken the point of emphasis to being a well-rounded player,” Mazzulla said. “Everything with him starts with his defensive intensity. Getting off to a great start defensively gets him going and that’s big for our team, and he can score on anybody at any time. He’s playing really well-rounded basketball on both ends. It’s fun to watch.”
Boston improved to 52-14 and are 9.5 games clear of second-placed Milwaukee (43-24) at the top of the Eastern Conference.
Phoenix fell to 38-28 and are seventh in the Western Conference, outside the top six automatic playoff places.
Suns coach Frank Vogel said that his team were not at Boston’s level, but insisted there was plenty of time for improvement with the start of the post-season looming next month.
“We’re just not quite where they are yet, but that’s the key word — yet,” Vogel said. “We’re going to keep growing, we’re going to keep getting better. We’re in our first year together. Those guys [Boston] have been together eight years or something.”
In Oklahoma City, the Thunder returned to the top of the Western Conference — just — with a 126-119 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
With Luka Doncic missing after suffering a tight hamstring in Wednesday’s win over Golden State, Kyrie Irving led the Dallas challenge with a game-high 36 points, but Oklahoma City pulled away in the second half to seal victory thanks to 31 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 27 from Jalen Williams.
The win leaves Oklahoma City in top spot in the Western Conference, level with NBA champions Denver on 46-20. Oklahoma City are in first place by virtue of their 3-1 record against Denver in meetings this season.
In Milwaukee, the Bucks produced a fourth-quarter rally to defeat the Philadelphia 76ers 114-105.
The Sixers, still without injured NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid, led by 10 early in the third quarter, but were gradually reeled in by the hosts.
Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Milwaukee scoring with 32 points, with Brook Lopez adding 19 and Damian Lillard 17.
Tyrese Maxey shouldered the Sixers offensive burden with 30 points, including five of nine from three-point range.
The win continued Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers’ perfect record against his former clubs since joining the Bucks in January.
The Los Angeles Clippers closed the gap on Denver and Oklahoma City with a comfortable 126-111 road win over the Chicago Bulls.
Chicago led briefly early in the first quarter, but the Clippers took over and led for the remainder of the game, opening up a 21-point advantage toward the end of the fourth quarter.
Paul George finished with 28 points, including six of seven from three-point range, while Kawhi Leonard added 27.
The Clippers improved to 42-23 to remain fourth in the West, 3.5 wins behind Denver and Oklahoma City (46-20).
Elsewhere, the Rockets downed the Wizards 135-119 and the Knicks trounced the Trail Blazers 105-93.
Additional reporting by staff writer
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
A debate over the soul of soccer is raging in FIFA World Cup holders Argentina, pitting defenders of the social role of the beautiful game against the government of libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who wants to turn clubs into for-profit companies. Argentina, which gave the world Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, is home to some of the world’s most devoted soccer fans — a fact attributed by supporters like Gabriel Nicosia to the clubs’ community outreach. Nicosia is a lifelong supporter of San Lorenzo, a more than 100-year-old first division club based in the working-class Buenos Aires neighborhood of Boedo where
RSS