Salt Lake City — Jayson Tatum scored 38 points and Derrick White added 24, leading the Boston Celtics to a 123-107 victory over the struggling Utah Jazz on Tuesday night.
The Celtics were without rotation players Jaylen Brown (back), Kristaps Porzingis (hamstring), and Al Horford (toe), but their shooting was so good that it didn’t matter much.
“The law of averages states that if you play so many games, you will not be perfect every night. “You have to stick with it and believe that there will be more good days than bad,” Tatum said of the Celtics’ 40.8% 3-point shooting.
Jrue Holiday scored 16 points and Sam Hauser added 14, as the Celtics nailed 20 3-pointers and beat the Jazz 22-8 on second-chance points.”We won the battle.on the boards and we needed to,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla stated.
Keyonte George scored 14 of his 26 points in the first quarter, Jordan Clarkson had 21 and Collin Sexton added 20 for Utah, which has lost 11 of its previous 13 games.
The Jazz were missing leading scorers Lauri Markkanen (thigh) and Taylor Hendricks (toe).
Clarkson ignited an 11-3 rally in the third quarter, bringing the Jazz within two after trailing by double digits for much of the game.
However, the Celtics answered with 20 consecutive points. With 6:28 remaining, Holiday scored back-to-back 3-pointers to extend their advantage to 113-91.
“We have a lot of quality defenders and players that can compete on both sides of the ball. When you see guys accomplishing stuff like that, it motivates you to compete.
