Celtics drop Magic, Bucks shoot down Rockets
Brown scored 17 of his 31 points in the final period to help the Celtics, who led by nine through three quarters, push their lead to as many as 23.
Jayson Tatum scored 23 points, and Kristaps Porzingis added 15 points and 10 rebounds in his return from a one-game absence.
The Celtics withstood a 36-point, 10-rebound performance from Orlando’s Paolo Banchero to beat the Magic for the second time in three days.
Stung by that defeat on Friday, the Magic raced to an early 10-point lead, but the Celtics turned the tide in the second quarter and never trailed after the break.
Brown, who added five rebounds, six assists, one steal and one block, said his fourth-quarter burst was just a matter of falling into a rhythm.
“I’m a do whatever our team needs kind of guy,” he said. “First quarter, fourth quarter, it don’t matter, I just take advantage of the opportunities I get.”
The Milwaukee Bucks stayed a game and a half behind the East-leading Celtics with a 128-119 victory over the Houston Rockets.
Damian Lillard scored 39 points and Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 26 points and pulled down 17 rebounds — passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the Bucks’ all-time rebounding leader.
Antetokounmpo, already the Bucks’ all-time leader in points and assists, claimed the franchise rebounding mark with his 14th of the night midway through the fourth quarter that took his career tally to 17,162.
The bruising encounter in Milwaukee saw Antetokounmpo leave the court to have a bleeding cut on his arm taken care of and Milwaukee’s Pat Connaughton take an elbow to the jaw from Houston’s Dillon Brooks.
Brooks and Rockets coach Ime Udoka were both ejected in the final minute.
The Rockets were down by nine when Brooks and Udoka were tossed and Lillard made three of the four technical free-throws to put it out of reach.
VanVleet led the Rockets with 22 points and center Alperen Sengun added 20. But Houston, who had cut the deficit to three midway through the fourth, couldn’t come up with an answer when Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton scored 14 of his 20 points in the final period to help the Bucks pull away.
In Phoenix, Kevin Durant scored 28 points and Devin Booker added 27 as the Suns erased a 16-point deficit to beat the Washington Wizards 112-108.
The Suns were up by one with 42.1 seconds remaining when Durant powered through the Wizards defense to jam in a one-handed dunk over Daniel Gafford.
Fouled on the play, Durant made the free-throw to push the lead to 110-106 and the Suns held on for the win.
Three-point bonanza
Elsewhere, the New Orleans Pelicans drilled a franchise record 22 three-pointers in a dominant 146-110 victory over the Spurs in San Antonio.
CJ McCollum made six of his seven three-point attempts on the way to 29 points. Brandon Ingram was five-of-seven from beyond the arc and scored 26 points for the Pelicans, who threw some cold water on the Spurs’ halftime ceremony honoring Tony Parker’s induction into the Hall of Fame in August.
Rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama scored 17 points and grabbed 13 rebounds under the eye of fellow Frenchman Parker, his childhood idol.
The Spurs, who snapped their 18-game losing streak with a victory over LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday, took a 6-0 lead on Wembanyama’s alley-oop dunk in the opening minutes but had little to celebrate the rest of the way.
