By Tiffany Williams –
The Boston crowd at TD Garden didn’t need subtlety Monday night. They wanted buckets, swagger and another notch in the win column. They got all three as Boston Celtics blasted past the Phoenix Suns 120–112 in a game that felt less like a grind and more like a statement.
Start with the man who owned the night: Jaylen Brown.
Forty-one points. Nineteen made free throws. Relentless pressure. Brown attacked the rim like the Suns had personally offended him, going 10-for-20 from the field and a ruthless 19-of-21 at the line. Phoenix defenders hacked, grabbed and hoped for mercy. They got none.
And here’s the real dagger: Boston did all this without needing a monster night from Jayson Tatum. Tatum put up a steady 21 points with seven rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes — efficient, controlled, and perfectly content letting Brown run the show.
That’s the scary part for the rest of the Eastern Conference. When Boston’s co-star is cooking like this, the offense becomes a pick-your-poison nightmare.
Phoenix tried to keep it close behind a scorching performance from Devin Booker, who poured in 40 points on 15-of-24 shooting. Booker was brilliant, slicing through the defense and drilling mid-range jumpers with surgical precision. But brilliance without help is just a good stat line in a losing locker room.
Because outside of Booker? The Suns offense turned shaky fast.
Jalen Green needed 20 shots to score 21 points and misfired on six of seven attempts from deep. Collin Gillespie went 1-for-8. The team shot just 32.5 percent from three while Boston calmly buried 17 triples.
That difference from the arc — 17 to 13 — was the quiet hammer blow.
Meanwhile Boston’s supporting cast delivered exactly the kind of depth that wins games in March and terrifies opponents in May. Derrick White dropped 21 points and knocked down five threes. Payton Pritchard drilled five more and finished with 19 points and six assists. Rookie Baylor Scheierman was perfect from the field, hitting all three of his shots.
And the ball moved. Thirty-one assists for Boston. Crisp. Unselfish. Clinical.
Phoenix actually hung around longer than the flow suggested. They even grabbed an early 8-0 lead and kept the deficit within striking distance deep into the third quarter. But every time the Suns sniffed momentum, Brown barreled into the paint or White splashed another three.
By the fourth quarter, Boston’s control was unmistakable. The Celtics led for nearly 35 minutes of game time and built a lead as large as ten. Phoenix never fully cracked the code.
Boston also dominated the interior, winning the points-in-the-paint battle 40-28 and holding a small edge on the glass. Those little advantages stack up quickly when your offense is humming.
The result: another notch in the win column and another reminder that Boston’s ceiling is frighteningly high.
The Celtics are now 45-23 and have won seven of their last ten. That’s not a hot streak — that’s a team sharpening its knives.
Phoenix walks away at 39-29 with the uncomfortable truth staring them in the mirror. Devin Booker can torch a defense for 40, but if the supporting cast can’t match Boston’s firepower, the Suns are playing uphill all night.
And Monday night in Boston, the hill looked very steep.