The Celtics fell to the San Antonio Spurs 100-95 Saturday at TD Garden on the second night of a back-to-back.
Derrick White led all scorers with 29 points, nine rebounds, while Jaylen Brown added 27 points, eight rebounds and seven assists but also committed five turnovers for the C's -- who fell to 24-14 on the season and finished 2-2 on their four-game homestand.
After getting to the the free throw line 13 times in Boston's 125-117 win over the Raptors Friday, Brown didn't have one attempt from the charity stripe against the Spurs, while the team shot just four overall to San Antonio's 20 free throw attempts.
"I feel like, honestly, they just got away with a lot, and I'm tired of the inconsistency," Brown said in his postgame rant about the officiating. "I'll accept the fine at this point. I thought it was some bullshit tonight. I think [the Spurs are] a good defensive team, but they ain't that damn good.
"I hope somebody can just pull up the clips, because it's the same shit every time we play a good team. It's like they refuse to make a call then call touch fouls on the other end."
Meanwhile, De'Aaron Fox led the way for the Spurs with 21 points on 9-of-16 from the field to go along with nine rebounds and six assists. Victor Wembanyama scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half off the bench despite the Celtics mixing in double teams and sending a few different players at him to somewhat lock him down defensively when he drove to the rim.
Keldon Johnson chipped in 18 points and 10 rebounds to help San Antonio win two in a row and improve to 27-11 for second place in the Western Conference.
The Celtics had a 62-53 advantage with 8:39 left in the third quarter (the largest margin of the night), before Wembanyama began to heat up, scoring nine points as part of San Antonio's 11-2 run and grabbing their first lead of the second half.
Baylor Scheierman (10 points) hit a corner go-ahead 3-pointer to break an 84 tie and White followed it up with a layup around the seven-minutes mark in the final frame, before the Spurs used a 9-2 run to take a 93-91 lead for good on a Johnson 3-pointer with 2:14 remaining.
After Brown's layup tied it up again, Wembanyama knocked down a fadaway jumper to put San Antonio back in front and Brown was stripped of the ball at midcourt and Julian Champagnie (12 points, 13 rebounds) scored on a putback layup to make it 97-93 with 41 seconds to go.
Another Wembanyama jumper proved to be the dagger with 19.1 seconds left to put the Spurs up 99-95, before former C's big man Luke Kornet -- who was playing for the first time in Boston since signing with San Antonio last summer -- went 1-of-2 from the free throw line to ice the win, but finished with five points and seven rebounds in a starting role.
"We obviously have to be better defending without fouling. I mean, there's no question about that," Joe Mazzulla said when asked about the free throw discrepancy. "We have to do better defending without fouling. I would say out of those 20 free throws, there's about four or five fouls that we have to be able to control, just get better at that on the defensive end."
The Celtics head back out on the road for a quick four-game trip in seven days, beginning on Monday night against the Indiana Pacers.
Boston connected on 41% of their attempts from the field, including going 14-of-44 (36%) from deep, while the Spurs were 40% from the floor and 10-of-44 (23%) from long distance. San Antonio won the rebound battle 53-52 and they outscored the home team 40-36 in the paint. Both teams assisted 22 times on 38 made baskets respectively.
Joel Pavón
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