The Celtics continued their homestand with a 120-112 victory over the Phoenix Suns Monday night at TD Garden to sweep their season-series 2-0.
Jaylen Brown finished with a game-high 41 points on 10-of-20 shooting -- his sixth 40-piece of the 2025-26 campaign -- becoming just the fourth Celtic in franchise history to record at least six 40-point performances in a season, joining Larry Bird (five times), Paul Pierce and Jayson Tatum. Brown also had seven rebounds and six assists.
The five-time All-Star knocked down a career-best 19-of-21 from the free throw line, as Brown was the first Celtic to achieve that feat since Pierce hit 19 free throws on 21 attempts against the Dallas Mavericks back on March 23, 2007.
"Man, I ain't never, ever got to the free-throw line that much. That's crazy," Brown told reporters in his postgame presser. "I approached the game the same; just physical, getting downhill, playing on two feet, and they made the call tonight."
Tatum went 8-of-18 from the field and netted 21 points, to go along with seven rebounds, while Derrick White also scored 21 points and added five assists and Payton Pritchard chipped in 19 points, six assists off the bench to help the Celtics win their second straight and improve to 45-23 on the season.
Devin Booker led the Suns with 40 points on 15-of-24 from the field, and six assists but turned the ball over seven times. Jalen Green added 21 points and Haywood Highsmith scored 16 points off the bench for Phoenix, who dropped to 39-29 on the year after losing back-to-back games.
Boston had a 91-86 advantage heading into the final frame, despite Booker scoring 35 points through three quarters, before Brown netted 18 of his 41 in the last 12 minutes -- making it the third-highest-scoring fourth quarter of his career.
While Brown continued to get to the free throw line, and hear chants of "M-V-P" from the home crowd, the Suns wouldn't go away and used a 21-13 spurt to take the lead and eventually make it 111-108 with 3:48 left to play.
A steal by Brown led to a fast break and an assist on a Tatum layup was followed up by two more made free throws by Brown to spark a 12-1 Boston run to secure the win.
In the end, the Celtics had 31 assists on 39 made field goals, setting a season-high in assist percentage at 79.5% for the night.
"I thought it was a great balance of our pace in transition, our attacking, our dribble-drive stuff was great, our 2-on-1 reads for each other was great," Joe Mazzulla told reporters. "At the end of day, we've just got to continue to play the right way, give the game what it needs, play as a team."
The Celtics will host the Golden State Warriors (33-35) Wednesday and ESPN has the tip-off at 7:00 pm ET.
Boston went 49% from the field on 39-of-80, including going 17-of-40 (43%) from 3-point range, while the Suns were 45% from the floor and 13-of-40 (32%) from deep. The Celtics won the rebound battle 38-35 and outscored the visiting team 40-28. Phoenix dished out 26 assists on 37 made shots and turned the ball over 10 times and the C's committed 14 turnovers.
Joel Pavón
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