With 35 points and a big third quarter, Jayson Tatum led the NBA-leading Boston Celtics to a 133–129 win over the Washington Wizards on Friday night. It was their 40th win of the season. 
The Celtics (40-12) finished with 20 points from Jrue Holiday and 34 points and 11 rebounds from Kristaps Porzingis. They won 40 games faster than any team since the 2008–09 season, when they did it in 49 games. Tatum got 30 or more points in 20 games this season.

“Our goal is to play basketball with a lot of purpose,” 18-point scorer Jaylen Brown said. “There’s a long trip in a season. There will be highs and lows. There will be games where shots don’t go in and through at all. We need to stay together. That’s what we’ve been doing.” 
Two Wizards, Deni Avdija and Corey Kispert, each scored 24 points. The Wizards have lost five games in a row. Bilal Coulibaly scored 21 points in the end.

They made 20 of 47 3-point shots and stayed in the game for most of the night. Washington was ahead by eight points in the third quarter, but in the last minute, they were only 131-127. But Boston won at the foul line.

This season, Boston has had some slow spots, but coach Joe Mazzulla said it wasn’t because his team was getting into bad habits. 
“Those habits don’t bother me.” “I do think there have been times when we slipped up during games,” Mazzulla said. “How we deal with those slipups is more important to me.”

Friday was the answer: they played one of the best third quarters of the season.

Before the break, Boston was down by six points. They started the third period on a 15-8 run, and after Porzingis’ three-pointer, they took the lead again at 79-78. Tatum drove a one-handed dunk over Kyle Kuzma as part of the flurry. 
Tatum scored 13 points in the quarter, and the Celtics beat the Wizards 36–16. They also made Washington shoot only 7–22 from the field and forced six mistakes, giving the Celtics a 100–87 lead going into the fourth.

Bryan Keefe, the Wizards’ temporary coach, said, “We knew they were going to try to come out in the third quarter and get physical with us and hurt us a little.” The fact that we were able to fight back is part of our growth as a team. In the end, we win three of the four quarters. It was just a tough third.”

It ruined a night that looked good for the Wizards at first. 
Before the break, Washington was ahead 71–64 thanks to Poole’s 19 points and 26 fast-break points against the best defence in the NBA. Before the game, Boston only let opponents score 13.6 fast break points per game.

The last time Poole didn’t score was in 2021, and this game was just one game after that.

In the first half, the Celtics made only 4 of 19 three-point shots. They only made 11 out of 24 shots from the field in the second quarter. Of the 13 field goals they missed, seven were from inside the paint.