TORONTO (AP) — Grant Williams scored a career-high 25 points, Jaylen Brown had 27 and the Boston Celtics overcame the absence of leading scorer Jayson Tatum to extend their winning streak to nine games by beating 106-104 Saturday at the toronto raptors.
With Tatum gone, Boston’s injury problems worsened when guard Marcus Smart sprained his right ankle in the last minute of the first half and had to be helped to the locker room. He didn’t come back.
Center Robert Williams remained in the game after Brown collided with his left knee in the first quarter. At half time, Williams was ruled out for the second half with a hyperextended knee.
“It says a lot about our team,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said of the shortstop win. “Early in the game you could obviously feel that we just didn’t have the juice. We just keep playing. We never faltered, we made great plays. The guys did a great job running the game.”
Williams had surgery on his left knee last March, but returned in the playoffs.
Mazzulla said Williams’ latest injury was “nothing serious”, adding that X-rays on Smart’s ankle revealed no structural damage.
Malcolm Brogdon scored 23 points and Payton Pritchard scored all of his 12 in the fourth quarter. The Celtics are unbeaten since a Jan. 3 loss at Oklahoma City.
“Winning in the NBA is hard enough, winning on the road against a bunch of guys is hard to do,” Brown said. “You don’t want to take it for granted, but we definitely have enough on this team, enough in this locker room, to win games, whoever is on the floor.”
Al Horford scored five points and shot 2-for-10, but had one rebound, one blocked shot and one steal in the final 20 seconds of the fourth quarter.
“The scorecard doesn’t tell the story of what he does for us,” Mazzulla said. “When he takes it to another level defensively, we’re a different team.”
Grant Williams shot 7 of 13 and made 4 of 6 from 3-point range. He went 7 for 8 on the line.
“He was great tonight, man,” Mazzulla said. “He was the trigger for us.”
Pascal Siakam had 29 points and 10 assists, Gary Trent Jr. scored 22 points and Precious Achiuwa had 17 points and 11 rebounds in his first start of the season, but Toronto lost its third straight.
