Jayson Tatum finished with 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists and the Boston Celtics pulled away for a 115-93 win over the host New York Knicks on Saturday afternoon in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series.
Payton Pritchard scored a team-high 23 points off the bench for Boston, which cut the Knicks’ lead to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. Jaylen Brown added 19 points and Derrick White had 17.
Jalen Brunson scored 27 points on 9-for-21 shooting to lead the Knicks. Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 15 rebounds.
After struggling to score in the first two games of the series, the Celtics found their rhythm on offense. Boston shot 48.2 percent (40 of 83) overall and 50 percent (20 of 40) from 3-point range, and New York shot 40 percent (32 of 80) from the field and 20 percent (5 of 25) from beyond the arc.
“They got some clean looks early, and they see it go in, that gives them confidence. Then it’s hard to shut them off,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. “We have to have greater awareness. We can’t allow missed shots to take away from (our) defensive tenacity. We’ve got to bounce back.”
Tatum made a basket to put Boston on top 112-89 with 2:40 remaining. He assisted on a 3-pointer by Al Horford on the next possession, and Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla rested his starters for the remainder of the game with the score out of reach.
“This is the fun part. You don’t get into the journey for it to be easy,” said Mazzulla. “It’s been dark, but in a good way. You’ve just got to tap into your darkness, and that’s it.”
The Celtics led 96-70 at the end of the third quarter. Boston led by as many as 31 points after Pritchard made a basket with 1:42 to go in the quarter, and the Knicks trimmed slightly into the deficit by scoring the final five points of the quarter on an alley-oop dunk by Mitchell Robinson, a floating jump shot by Brunson and a free throw by Robinson.
“I don’t think we came with the mindset of being satisfied, but I think it was just subconsciously satisfied being up 2-0,” said Brunson. “Just not the way we need to approach the game.”
Boston sprinted to a 36-20 lead at the end of the first quarter. Pritchard drove the ball across half court and hit a baseline jumper as time expired to put the Celtics on top by 16.
By halftime, the Celtics increased their lead to 71-46. Brown buried a 3-pointer to put Boston at the 70-point mark with 30.5 seconds left in the half, and he made one of two free throws in the closing seconds to give the Celtics a 25-point advantage.
–Field Level Media
