Jaylen Brown poured in 31 points, including 14 during a decisive third-quarter surge, as the Boston Celtics rallied for a 119-109 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night at TD Garden. The win snapped the defending champions’ 12-game winning streak.
Boston trailed by 11 after the opening period but grabbed its first lead midway through the second quarter with a 29-15 burst. Brown then controlled the third, pushing the Celtics to an 88-83 edge entering the final 12 minutes. The margin swelled to 14 before Oklahoma City trimmed it to six with 1:30 remaining. Brown answered with a layup, and Derrick White added two free throws to seal Boston’s first triumph over a team 40 games above .500 since March 8, 2017.
Jayson Tatum rebounded from consecutive subpar outings with 19 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. Brown also contributed eight rebounds and eight assists.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 33 points and eight assists, extending his streak of 30-point games against Boston to seven—the longest against the Celtics since LeBron James logged nine straight from 2004 to 2008. Oklahoma City struggled on the glass, giving up a 19-2 disadvantage in second-chance points, and shot 12-for-37 from beyond the arc.
Lu Dort scored 14 points, while Jalen Williams finished with seven in his second outing after missing 16 games with a hamstring injury. Center Nikola Vucevic (finger) remained sidelined for Boston; all other key absences from the clubs’ March 11 meeting—a two-point Thunder win in Oklahoma City—returned for the rematch.
The Thunder arrived with the league’s best record and the top spot in the Western Conference; Boston entered with the East’s second-best mark. The teams split their two-game regular-season series.
Source: ESPN
