Tatum helps lift NBA-leading Celtics over Raptors
Star forward records 31 points, 12 rebounds in victory
In a season of struggling to find some consistency, Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse deemed Monday's home game against the Boston Celtics a good measuring stick for his team.
"I'm always gonna be concerned with: are we playing good basketball," Nurse said. "We had a couple of really bad quarters in [recent] games which we didn't play very good at all. We're just striving for a little more consistency, little bit more building and trending in the right direction of playing good basketball.
"[A win] was there to be had tonight."
Jayson Tatum had 31 points and 12 rebounds, while Jaylen Brown had 22 points for Boston (20-5).
WATCH | Celtics take down Raptors:
Pascal Siakam scored 29 points, while Scottie Barnes finished with 21 and Gary Trent Jr., added 20 for the Raptors (12-12), who lost for just the third time at Scotiabank Arena this season. O.G. Anunoby chipped in with 13 points.
The Raptors paced the Celtics through most of the game, and led by as many as 10 points in the first half.
But Tatum poured in 17 points in the third quarter — one less than the Raptors combined — and when he laid it in with a finger roll with 2:33 left in the frame, the basket put Boston up by 13. The Celtics led 91-80 with one quarter to play.
But Blake Griffin's tip shot with 26.8 on the clock put Boston back up by seven and sent hundreds of Raptors fans to the Scotiabank Arena exits.
Siakam said after a slew of injuries and illness and a couple of horrible losses on the road in New Orleans and Brooklyn, the mood among the team was not surprisingly down.
Neither team led by more than 10 points in a tightly contested first half. The Celtics went ahead by eight late in the first quarter on a three-pointer by Sam Hauser, but the Raptors closed with a 7-0 run and trailed just 27-25 to start the second.
Toronto went on a 10-1 run in the second, capped by a couple of Christian Koloko free throws and then matched virtually every Boston basket the rest of the half to take a 62-56 lead into the halftime break.
