Jaylen Brown’s 26 points led the Boston Celtics to a 115-101 win over the Toronto Raptors on Easter Sunday at TD Garden, completing the team’s 4-0 season sweep over its division rival.
That “rivalry” has been pretty lopsided in recent years. Boston has gone 15-1 against Toronto over the past four regular seasons and has not lost a season series against the Raptors since 2016-17.
While the teams have not faced off in the playoffs since the 2020 NBA Bubble, that could change this year.
With today’s win, the Celtics are 53-25 and hold a commanding three-game lead over the New York Knicks for second seed in the Eastern Conference, with only four games left to go. Unless Boston bottoms out over that final run, it will face the seventh seed as determined by the Play-In Tournament.
With today’s loss, the Raptors are 43-35 and tied record-wise with the Philadelphia 76ers. However, Toronto loses that tiebreaker since its 4-11 division record is worse than Philly’s 9-7. That leaves the Raptors as the East’s current seventh seed and lined up for a potential appearance in the play-ins.
Today’s game was the first time all season that the Celtics’ injury report was clear, as Nikola Vučević returned almost a month after undergoing surgery to stabilize a fractured right ring finger.
Boston started Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser, Jayson Tatum and Neemias Queta.
The Raptors were without Immanuel Quickley, who missed his eighth straight game to plantar fasciitis in his right foot, and Chucky Hepburn, who tore the meniscus in his right knee in January and has yet to return.
Toronto started Ja’Kobe Walter, RJ Barrett, Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl.
Boston got off to a hot start, taking a 10-2 lead less than three minutes into the game. A lot of that can be credited to Neemias Queta, who got three easy buckets off of assists from Brown and White as Toronto’s defense crowded the perimeter and left the paint open for Queta to dominate.
With the help of some sloppy play and three Celtics turnovers, the Raptors went on a mini-run and tied the game at 12-12, but a Tatum three-pointer, Queta putback and four straight points from Brown put Boston back up 19-15.
With five minutes to go in the first quarter, Coach Joe Mazzulla subbed in Baylor Scheierman — who immediately hit a three-pointer — Vučević, Jordan Walsh and Payton Pritchard for everyone but Brown.
Vooch looked rusty in his first minutes back on the court, turning the ball over on a bad pass and missing his first three-point attempt. During that time, Toronto took its first lead of the game 24-22, with about two minutes to go in the quarter.
During the last play of the quarter, Tatum drove to the rim and made an impressive pass to Vučević on the perimeter, but Vooch missed his second three-point attempt. The quarter ended with the teams tied 26-26.
Early in the second quarter, Tatum strong-armed a block on RJ Barrett, leading to an open Hauser three-point make and a technical foul on Barrett, who was upset with the no-call.
Tatum hit the technical free throw to put the Celtics up 31-30, but the Raptors hit the next two shots and took a 34-30 lead with 10 minutes to go in the half. Ja’Kobe Walter led Toronto’s early efforts with a 13-point start on 5-6 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from three-point range.
A 10-0 run increased the Raptors’ lead to 38-30, but the Celtics got a few offensive rebounds on the next play to snap their scoreless run with a strong Queta layup. His early dominance continued into the second quarter, as he got another putback bucket, as well as an easy cutting dunk off of a Tatum assist.
While the Celtics continued to struggle on offense, the Raptors shared in the lull, allowing Boston to tie the game at 42 with about three minutes to go in the half.
Derrick White hit a three-pointer to take the lead back, 45-42, and after some back-and-forth scoring, Tatum hit a three from the top of the key to go up 52-46.
Brown hit the team’s final shot of the quarter to extend the lead to 54-46 at the half. He finished the half with 12 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists on 6-10 shooting from the field.
Tatum had 11 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals on 50% shooting from the field and 2-3 shooting from three-point range, but also had 5 turnovers — more than half of the team’s 9 total turnovers — and 3 personal fouls at the half.
Queta was the Celtics’ undisputed MVP of the first half, leading the team with 16 points on 8-9 shooting from the field, 5 rebounds and an assist. He was at the heart of the Celtics’ 24-8 run to end the second quarter, which began when he subbed back into the game with less than nine minutes to go in the half.
To begin the third quarter, Tatum slithered past a solid Queta screen and through the Raptors’ defense for a dunk. He also secured his sixth double-double in seven games with his 10th rebound with 22 minutes left to go in the game.
Queta’s strong play continued with a pair of soaring blocks over the first few minutes of the second half, but he was subbed out in favor of Vučević with about 7:30 to go in the third quarter as the team was up 62-57.
Vooch got his first bucket of the night off of an offensive rebound, but did little else during his second stint on the court.
Boston’s struggles with turnovers did not let up in the third quarter, as the Celtics racked up 5 more turnovers over the first six minutes of the second half. The Raptors kept up the pressure and tied the game at 69-69 with less than five minutes to go in the third quarter.
Queta was subbed back in for Vučević with about four minutes left to go in the third quarter and he got his third block of the night shortly after.
Toronto again tied the game at 75-75, but a wild corner three from Brown once again put the Celtics on top, 78-75.
The teams went back-and-forth over the last two minutes of the third, which finished with Boston leading 80-77.
The fourth quarter began with an absurd behind-the-back pass from Tatum to an open Payton Pritchard for a three-pointer, then a Vučević bucket to put the C’s up 85-77.
With the help of another Pritchard bucket and a Toronto turnover, then a foul on a Tatum three-pointer, the Celtics secured their first double-digit lead of the night at 89-79 with 10 minutes to go in the final frame.
When it looked like the Raptors may bring the lead back to single digits, Sam Hauser got an and-1 to extend the lead to 96-83.
Toronto cut the lead to 98-91 with a couple Brandon Ingram jumpers over Pritchard, but Queta got a massive putback dunk and White hit his second three-pointer of the night to extend the lead back up to 103-91 with about four minutes remaining.
The Celtics all but ended the night with a sudden scoring explosion sparked by Brown in the final minutes. Brown used some slick moves to make Barrett buckle over and touch the court before he blew by for an easy driving layup. He then got his own rebound off of a free throw miss and put it back in for another bucket to put Boston up by 14.
After a Tatum layup and White fadeaway, Brown got a steal and dunked it to bring the Celtics’ lead to 18 points with less than three minutes to go.
Brown finished the game with 26 points on 55% shooting from the field, with 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
Tatum had 23 points, 13 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals and 5 turnovers.
Queta racked up 18 points, 7 rebounds — five of them on the offensive end — 4 assists and three blocks.
In Vooch’s first chance to play alongside Jayson Tatum, he finished with 4 points, 4 rebounds and an assist in 13 minutes of play.
Overall, Boston shot an abysmal 8-28 (28.6%) from three-point range, but finished the game with 76 points in the paint and 9 more rebounds than Toronto (44-31). While turnovers were an issue for the Celtics, both teams ended with 15 turnovers, and there was only a 2-point difference in points off of turnovers for the game.
The Celtics’ next game will be another potential first-round preview, as Boston will take on the rolling Charlotte Hornets at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, April 7, at the TD Garden.
The game will be broadcasted on NBC and Peacock.
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