Two days after having five stitches removed from a finger on his shooting hand, Jaylen Brown recorded game highs of 29 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Boston Celtics to a 112-99 victory over the visiting Atlanta Hawks in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series Saturday.
Brown, an Atlanta native, missed Boston’s final two regular-season games after cutting himself while picking up a piece of glass in his home.
Jayson Tatum added 25 points and 11 rebounds for the second-seeded Celtics, who received a 24-point performance from Derrick White.
The seventh-seeded Hawks were 5 of 29 from 3-point range, and were outrebounded 58-45.
Dejounte Murray led the Hawks with 24 points and eight rebounds. Trae Young, Atlanta’s leading scorer during the regular season, finished with 16 points.
The Hawks trimmed a 30-point halftime deficit to 12, 96-84, with 9:33 to play, but the Celtics responded with a 6-0 run to push their lead to 18. Atlanta, which trailed 94-75 after three quarters, missed 11 of its next 12 shots after slicing Boston’s lead to 12 points.
Atlanta used an 8-0 run to pull within 12 points with 3:16 to go, but never got any closer.
Game 2 will be played in Boston on Tuesday before the best-of-seven series shifts to Atlanta on Friday.
Boston led 29-19 after one quarter and extended its lead in the second. A Tatum 3-pointer capped a 20-3 run that put the Celtics up 52-27 with 6:10 remaining in the quarter, and Boston had its largest lead of the half after Tatum made a 3-pointer that gave the Celtics a 74-44 advantage with 2.2 seconds left in the second.
Boston shot 60 percent from the field in the first half, when it made nine of its 16 3-point attempts. Atlanta shot 33.3 percent from the floor and was 1 of 16 from behind the arc.
–Field Level Media
