BOSTON — Jaylen Brown had 28 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, and the Boston Celtics rolled past the Brooklyn Nets, 148-111, on Friday (Saturday in Manila).
Nikola Vucevic finished with 28 points and 11 rebounds for his third double-double since joining the Celtics. Payton Pritchard added 22 points for Boston, which has won five of six since returning from the All-Star break.
The Celtics shot a season-high 66.7 percent from the field and connected on 22 three-pointers. They also got 77 points from their bench.
Michael Porter Jr. finished with 18 points for Brooklyn, which has lost seven straight games.
The Celtics took control in the third quarter, outscoring the Nets 43-26. Brooklyn managed only seven points over the final 6:23 of the period.
Boston shot 15 of 19 from the field with 12 assists in the pivotal quarter and connected 5 of 7 attempts from the three-point line
Boston’s lead grew to as many as 41 points in the fourth.
The Celtics shot 62 percent from the field (24 of 39) and 60 percent from the three-point line (12 of 20), yet only led 66-57 at halftime.
The Nets were able to stay close, thanks to eighth Boston turnovers, which Brooklyn turned into 12 points.
The Celtics had only four turnovers in the second half.
In Detroit, James Harden sat out the Cleveland Cavaliers’ game against the Detroit Pistons as he recovers from a fractured right thumb.
Harden was injured on Tuesday against New York. He’s averaging 18.9 points in seven games for the Cavaliers following a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Cleveland also was without Donovan Mitchell. He strained his groin against the Knicks.
The Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers were delayed for 18 minutes in the third quarter by a blaring horn after a power surge caused the overhead scoreboard to malfunction.
During a timeout with the Pistons leading 65-64, the horn sounded to warn both teams that they needed to return to the floor. However, the horn kept blasting despite frantic work from workers at Little Caesars Arena.
The teams returned to the benches for a few minutes, but were eventually told to go back onto the floor and warm up.
After 13 minutes, the horn stopped to loud cheers from the crowd, but only because the arena staff shut down the entire overhead scoreboard.
The officials brought Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff and Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson to midcourt for a brief discussion, before announcing the game would resume without the main scoreboard.
However, moments after the game got back underway, the scoreboard came back on. The scoring crew used a manual airhorn the rest of the game.
