Jayson Tatum on Tuesday scored 33 points as the Boston Celtics ended the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 15-game unbeaten start to the season with a hard-fought 120-117 victory in the NBA Cup.
The Celtics unleashed a barrage of 22 three-pointers to overwhelm Cleveland, who clawed their way back to within two points of the lead late in the game after trailing by 21 early in the second half.
Despite the Cleveland fightback, reigning NBA champions Boston held their nerve and kept the scoreboard ticking over to close out a deserved win.
Photo: AFP
Tatum’s 33 points included six three-pointers, while the Boston star added 12 rebounds and seven assists in an all-round Celtics effort that saw six players finish in double figures.
Tatum said that Boston’s championship pedigree had helped the Celtics over the line as Cleveland threatened late in the game.
“We’ve played a lot of basketball, we’ve played in the biggest games,” Tatum said. “NBA is a bunch of talented teams — guys are gonna make plays, they’re gonna make shots. I say it all the time — how you respond shows your growth and how special your team is.”
Tatum added that ending Cleveland’s unbeaten record, which has left them sitting on top of the Eastern Conference, had motivated the Celtics.
“They came in 15-0 feeling like they were the best team. We felt like we were the best team — it’s all competition. We were ready to play today,” he said.
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said his team had been caught off-guard by Boston’s superior intensity.
“They had playoff force and physicality, we had regular-season force and physicality,” Atkinson said. “That’s why we were down by whatever we were down. Second half we turned it up, but it was kind of too late. We’re just going to have to put it in the bank and make adjustments.”
In other NBA Cup group stage games, Russell Westbrook became the first player in NBA history to amass 200 career triple-doubles, finishing with 12 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists as a depleted Denver Nuggets overpowered the Memphis Grizzlies 122-110.
In Dallas, Luka Doncic finished with 26 points as the Mavericks crushed the New Orleans Pelicans 132-91.
The San Antonio Spurs shrugged off the absence of French star Victor Wembanyama to record an impressive 110-104 defeat of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Los Angeles Lakers extended their recent unbeaten streak to six games with a 124-118 win over the Utah Jazz.
Rookie Dalton Knecht was the star for the Lakers, scoring 37 points from 12-of-16 shooting while LeBron James and Anthony Davis each scored 26 points.
In New York, the Brooklyn Nets defeated the Charlotte Hornets 116-115 after a 34-point display from Cameron Johnson.
The NBA Cup was introduced last season as a way of providing a knockout competition in the early months of the league season.
All 30 league teams are drawn into six groups of five, with eight teams advancing to single-elimination knockout rounds.
The semi-finals and final take place in Las Vegas on Dec. 14-17.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five