Jayson Tatum scored 30 points and Jaylen Brown added 19 in his return from a hamstring injury as the Boston Celtics cruised past the Houston Rockets 108-90 on Monday night to earn their third straight win.
Brown scored 12 of his points in the third quarter and finished 6 of 13 from the field in his first game since Nov. 4 at Miami. Brown was sidelined for the Celtics’ last eight games due to a Grade 1 right hamstring strain.
Dennis Schroder finished with 18 points, Al Horford contributed 11 with 11 rebounds and Robert Williams III grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds for the Celtics, who have won eight of their 11 games since Nov. 3.
Williams had missed Boston’s last two games because of a left knee injury.
Armoni Brooks had 17 points off the bench to lead Houston, whose losing streak swelled to a league-high 15 games.
Jalen Green and Eric Gordon had nine points apiece for the Rockets. Houston leading scorer Christian Wood was limited to four points on 2-of-6 shooting with nine rebounds.
Houston’s skid began with a 107-97 home loss to Boston in the teams’ first meeting of the season on Oct. 24.
On Monday, Boston was up 52-47 at halftime and led by nine with just under 10 minutes to go in the third quarter. Horford’s 3-pointer at 8:52 sparked a 17-0 run to put the Celtics up 76-50 with 5:14 to play before the fourth.
Boston led by as many as 29 points midway through the final quarter.
The Celtics led 22-21 after a back-and-forth opening quarter. Houston led 34-38 after Brooks’ trey with 8:19 left in the second before Boston went on an 11-0 run to take control of the game for good.
Brown did not score in the first quarter and scored his first points on a pull-up jumper with 6:42 left before halftime.
–Field Level Media