Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics (Getty Images via AFP)
WASHINGTON – Jayson Tatum scored 38 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Boston Celtics stretched their NBA win streak to eight games on Sunday by defeating the Atlanta Hawks 105-95.
The Celtics improved to 33-25, sixth in the Eastern Conference, with their 20th home victory in 30 games while Atlanta fell to 26-30, 10th in the East.
“We’ve just been healthy,” Tatum said of the reason for the streak. “That bothered us in the beginning of the season.
“There’s goods and bads for us in the season but we can’t lose sight of the goals we’re trying to accomplish.
“We hope we can keep it going. We’re trying to keep it up.”
Trailing 55-45 at halftime, the Celtics out-scored Atlanta 42-23 in the third quarter to pull away.
“We just played with a little more pace,” Tatum said. “We started attacking more.”
Jaylen Brown added 17 points for the Celtics while Robert Williams contributed 10 points and 14 rebounds and Derrick White had 14 points off the Boston bench.
Trae Young led Atlanta with 30 points and 10 assists while Clint Capela grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds for the Hawks and Serbian guard Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 26 points off the bench in a losing cause.
Timberwolves beat Pacers
In the only other NBA contest on the Sunday of the NFL’s Super Bowl championship spectacle, Anthony Edwards scored a game-high 37 points to power the Minnesota Timberwolves to a 129-120 victory at Indiana.
Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves (Getty Images/AFP)
D’Angelo Russell added 23 points while Karl-Anthony Towns had 15 points and 13 rebounds for the T-Wolves, who rose to 30-27, seventh in the Western Conference.
Oshae Brissett had 22 points and 13 rebounds while Tyrese Haliburton had 22 points and 16 assists for Indiana, which lost a sixth straight game and slid to 19-39, 13th in the East.