Jaylen Brown recorded 29 points and 10 rebounds before fouling out and Derrick White scored 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter as the Boston Celtics notched a 120-106 victory over the host Sacramento Kings on Thursday night.
Payton Pritchard added 16 points and six assists, Sam Hauser scored 15 points on five 3-pointers and fellow reserve Anfernee Simons had 14 points for Boston, which won for the sixth time in its past seven games.
DeMar DeRozan logged 25 points and six assists, Dennis Schroder tallied 18 points with seven assists and fellow reserve Keon Ellis added 16 points for the Kings, who lost their third straight contest. Precious Achiuwa scored 14 points and Maxime Raynaud added 12 for Sacramento.
The contest was tied at 88 entering the fourth quarter before White took over. He had just two points on 1-of-6 shooting entering the period before knocking down 4 of 7 field-goal attempts — including 2 of 3 from behind the arc — and making all four free-throw attempts over the final 12 minutes.
White hit a 3-pointer to give the Celtics a 93-90 lead early in the quarter.
It was a four-point margin before Brown converted a three-point play with 6:26 left and White drained a trey 27 seconds later to make it 110-100 as the Celtics cruised to the finish.
White also had seven assists, five rebounds and three steals.
Neemias Queta put up 13 points and Luka Garza scored 11 off the bench for the Celtics, who made 50.6% of their field-goal attempts and 17 of 41 (41.5%) from 3-point range.
The Kings connected on 47.6% of their shots and were 12 of 36 (33.3%) from behind the arc. Russell Westbrook had 10 points and six assists.
Sacramento led most of the first half until Boston scored the final six points for a 62-61 lead at the break.
Boston kept it going at the outset of the third quarter with seven consecutive points, and the advantage was 69-61 after two free throws by Pritchard.
Hauser buried a trey to give the Celtics a 74-66 lead before Sacramento scored 11 in a row. Schroder capped the burst with a 3-pointer to give the Kings a 77-74 advantage with 6:58 remaining in the quarter.
Sacramento was coming off a dismal 41-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday — matching the Kings’ worst margin of defeat this season — but led for nearly the first 16 minutes on Thursday.
Boston took its first lead at 46-45 on Garza’s basket with 8:11 remaining in the second quarter.
–Field Level Media
