NBA: Jayson Tatum’s clutch jumper lifts Celtics to win over Knicks

By the Associated Press

BOSTON — Jayson Tatum made a big play at a big moment for the Boston Celtics.

Then he made it sound very routine.

Tatum hit a turnaround jumper with 1.3 seconds remaining, and the Celtics beat the New York Knicks 104-102 on Friday night for their fourth straight victory.

“It feels great, but I don’t want to get too excited,” Tatum said. “The guys that I look up to in this league, they’ve do things like this all the time.”

Tatum finished with 24 points. Kemba Walker scored 23 of his 33 points in the second half, and Gordon Hayward had 13 points and nine boards.

Walker called Tatum’s basket “a huge, big-time shot.”

“I’m happy we went to him,” he said. “Hopefully that keeps him confident. That can really just get something going for us. That was an unbelievable play.”

Unlike a 118-95 rout at Madison Square Garden the previous Saturday, Boston was pushed by New York until the very end of a game that featured 24 lead changes and 10 ties.

Marcus Morris, who played the last two seasons with the Celtics before signing with New York as a free agent, led the Knicks with 29 points. Morris made four foul shots in the final minute, and then hit a tying 3-pointer with 4.7 seconds left.

“We stayed locked in all game long,” said Knicks rookie RJ Barrett, who finished with 15 points and seven rebounds.

“The whole fourth quarter we [were] fighting, and that’s the identity of our team. We did that tonight.”

After Morris’ late 3, the Celtics called timeout and Marcus Smart inbounded the ball to Tatum in the corner. He caught the pass, turned around and pulled up for a shot from the corner that was initially called a 3-pointer. It was quickly overturned during the timeout, but it didn’t matter. The Celtics broke up a long inbound pass and the Knicks didn’t get off another shot.

Morris congratulated his former teammate after the game.

“It was good to see him get his first one (game-winning shot),” Morris said. “I wish it could have been against somebody else, but hey — it’s the NBA.”

It was the third straight game with 30-plus points by Walker, who scored 32 in the previous two and finished with his best game since signing with the Celtics as a free agent.

Walker also hit all 14 of his foul shots and added five assists and six rebounds.

“We stuck with the game,” Walker said. “It came down to a last-second shot, but (we’ll) take wins any way you can get them.”

The Knicks led 50-49 at halftime and opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer by Frank Ntilikina, starting a period full of shots from beyond the arc. Both clubs hit five 3-pointers in the quarter before the Celtics carried a 75-74 lead into the fourth.

The back-and-forth continued in the final period. Boston regained the lead on a three-point play by Walker, putting the Celtics up 87-86 with 5:19 remaining.

Hayward followed with a 3-pointer and Tatum hit a pair of foul shots to stretch the lead to 92-86 with 4:14 left to play. The Knicks pulled within a point at 92-91, then again at 95-94 on a 3-pointer by Morris, but the Celtics answered with a pair of free throws by Walker and a 3-pointer by Tatum with 1:50 remaining, giving Boston a 99-94 lead.

Kings survive Jazz, end five-game skid

De’Aaron Fox got back to attacking the rim. Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic found their rhythm from the perimeter. And Luke Walton finally got his first victory with Sacramento.

With one all-inclusive performance, the Kings ended their worst start in nearly 30 years and shook off the label of being the NBA’s only remaining winless team.

Harrison Barnes scored on an offensive rebound with 2.9 seconds remaining after Nemanja Bjelica’s missed 3-pointer, and the Kings won their first game of the season, beating the Utah Jazz 102-101 on Friday night.

“It was probably the first time all season we put together a full game,” Barnes said. “Everyone down the line came in and contributed, and that was the team effort that we needed, the energy, the fight when they made runs, that we needed.”

It wasn’t all pretty.

Sacramento committed 17 turnovers, made only 12 of 17 free throws and was outscored 13-5 over the final 5 minutes.

But for a franchise that had playoff aspirations after going 39-43 a year ago, it was a definitive step forward.

“We were hungry tonight? Yes. Have we been hungry most games to start? Yes, and then it fades out,” Walton said.

“But that’s the intensity that we have to have for an entire game. Hopefully we feel that, we build on it and we continue to go in the right direction.”

Fox scored 25 points, Hield had 18 and Bogdanovic added 14 to help the Kings (1-5).

Donovan Mitchell had 24 points for the Jazz (4-2). Rudy Gobert added 15 points and 16 rebounds, and Mike Conley scored 19.

Mitchell’s desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer grazed the front of the rim.

“We knew it wasn’t the last minute that lost us the game. It was things we did in between the quarters,” Conley said. “Defensively we weren’t ourselves in different areas. They attacked us in pick and rolls, they were aggressive, and you can tell they were trying to get a win. They did everything necessary to do that. We didn’t come with the same energy.”

Nearly a week after getting blown out by the Jazz 113-81 in Salt Lake City, the Kings built an early lead, nearly gave it all away, then made a pair of big plays down the stretch to win.

Utah trailed 97-88 before scoring nine straight to tie the game on Mitchell’s 22-foot jumper. After Dewayne Dedmon made a 3-pointer for Sacramento, Mitchell fed Gobert for an alley-oop dunk, then scored on a layup to put the Jazz up 101-100 with 11.2 seconds left.

Bjelica, who made three 3s earlier in the game, missed from the left corner with the clock running down, but Harrison grabbed the rebound and scored the winner.

“Belly had a good look, a look that we all have a lot of confidence in (him) to knock that shot down,” Barnes said. “(I) found a good bounce and was able to put it in.”

It’s the first time in six games that Utah has allowed more than 100 points.

Source: Manila Bulletin