Brown scores 29, Pritchard adds 25 bench points to lead Celtics past Heat 108-89

By JIMMY GOLEN AP Sports Writer

BOSTON (AP) — Jaylen Brown scored 29 points, Jayson Tatum had 18 points and 11 rebounds and Payton Pritchard scored 25 off the bench on Monday night as the Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat 108-89.

Derrick White added 19 points as the defending NBA champions won for the eighth time in nine games.

Jaime Jaquez Jr. had 19 points and 10 rebounds and Tyler Herro scored 19 for Miami. Herro was 2 for 10 from 3-point range, and the Heat shot 23% from beyond the arc and 36% from the field.

Both teams were without key players for the second night of a back-to-back after losing on Sunday.

Miami played without Jimmy Butler, who has missed five of the first 19 games with a knee injury. The Celtics were without Jrue Holiday, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis.

Miami scored the first seven points and then went cold while the Celtics ran off 17 of the next 19 points to take the lead. Boston made it a double-digit lead early in the second quarter and went up by 20 in the third.

Takeaways

Heat: Keshad Johnson made his NBA debut and scored two points in seven minutes.

Celtics: Have not lost back-to-back games all season.

Key moment

Pritchard, who hit two half-court buzzer-beaters in the NBA Finals, beat the third-quarter buzzer on Monday night when he dribbled through the lane and sidestepped defender Pelle Larsson and laid in a left-hander off the backboard to give Boston a 22-point lead — their biggest in the game to that point.

Key stat

Pritchard became the first NBA player this season to score 20 or more bench points in four straight games. He's the first Celtic to do it since Isaiah Thomas in 2015.

Up next

Both teams are home on Wednesday night, with the Celtics hosting Detroit and the Heat hosting the Lakers.

Here's how we previewed the game, including our tip.

Boston let us down last night, folding to a 4th Quarter onslaught from the Cavaliers, and an unexpected 115-111 loss. So they owe us a result back on home court against Atlantic coast rivals Miami.

It is fair to say, that Heat have very little support from the NBA tipping community for an outright win in this game, but the best value bets are found by digging into the Line and Over/Under markets, so that's what we've done. We take a look at all the major NBA picks sites, summarising their positions, so you don't have to!

Dimers - forecasting a 115 - 105 win for the Celtics, so with Miami benefitting from a +10.5 point spread, the smart money would just about go on Heat (+10.5) at odds of around 1.90
Clutch Points - another pick for Heat plus the points
Pickswise - at time of publishing our tip today have not yet published any predictions for this game, we'll update once they have
Sportskeeda - tipping Miami (+10.5) and Over (220.5) market
Betting Odds - also picking Heat plus 10.5, also tipping Over (221.5)
Sportsline - going bolder than Dimers, forecasting a 118-104 win for Boston, and therefore tipping the Celtics (-10.5)

The spread looks too close to call here, so we're steering clear of those Heat bets, and there is no value in backing the Celtics on the moneyline, so our attention is on the Over/Under market, and we're expecting a game total ranging from 221 to 231 - thus we're having a modest bet on Over (220.5) at odds of 1.93 (at time of publishing)

This tip lost, as a weak Miami showing, kept the points total lower than expected.

Our winning player props tip can be found further down this page.