Jaylen Brown scored 30 points, Derrick White added 27 and the visiting Boston Celtics held off the Toronto Raptors 121-113 for their fifth straight win on Sunday.
Payton Pritchard scored 15 points for the Celtics, who have won 10 of 12. Neemias Queta had 11 points and 11 rebounds while Anfernee Simons scored 12.
Brandon Ingram scored 30 for the Raptors, who have dropped three straight. Scottie Barnes added 18 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. Sandro Mamukelashvili contributed 14 points, Immanuel Quickley and Ochai Agbaji each scored 11 and Jakob Poeltl and A.J. Lawson each added 10.
The Celtics watched their 23-point lead shrink to six entering the fourth quarter. Lawson’s 3-pointer cut the lead to one, and Toronto took a one-point lead when Alijah Martin nabbed a steal to set up Jamal Shead’s layup with 10:39 to go.
Barnes scored four straight points for Toronto before White hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 102 with 7:51 remaining. Pritchard’s corner 3-pointer put Boston ahead for good.
Brown added a mid-range jumper for a five-point margin. Another three from Pritchard gave Boston a 110-104 lead with 4:17 left. After a series of misses by Toronto, White nailed a 3-pointer with 3:29 to play.
Ingram’s 3-pointer trimmed the lead to six with 59 seconds left, but the Raptors could get no closer.
The Celtics led 34-26 after the first quarter and stretched the lead to 13 on Sam Hauser’s 3-pointer with six minutes remaining in the second quarter.
The lead reached 16 with 3:44 left when Brown stuffed a layup after Pritchard’s steal. Hauser’s 3-pointer from the top of the key bumped the margin to 20 with 1:58 to play, and Pritchard set up White’s driving layup that increased the gap to 22.
Mamukelashvili’s layup at the buzzer cut the lead to 77-59 at halftime.
Boston used an 8-0 run capped by Pritchard’s 3-pointer to lead 87-64 with 8:33 left in the third quarter. Toronto pared the margin to four with a 19-2 run finished by Shead’s 3-pointer with 1:47 left in the quarter.
–Field Level Media
