![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CELTICSsc-011_0f8efb.jpg\")
Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum celebrates a thrilling overtime win over the Nets as he leaves the court. Stuart Cahill\/Boston Herald<\/p>\nJayson Tatum hit an overtime buzzer-beater to cap a wild, roller-coaster victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday at TD Garden.<\/p>\n
Tatum scored 40 points \u2014 including a career-high 18 free throws on 22 attempts \u2014 in the 125-124 thriller to rescue Boston after it coughed up a four-point lead in the final four seconds of regulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got the ball to the MVP,\u201d Paul George said, \u201cand he took us home.\u201d<\/p>\n
After trailing the Nets for 25 consecutive minutes on the second night of a back-to-back, the Celtics took the lead late on a rare and-one dunk by Derrick White (total dunks last season: 14) with 34 seconds left in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Then, disaster. Or so it seemed.<\/p>\n
Center Neemias Queta made contact with Julius Randle\u2019s wrist after a missed Tatum free throw, resulting in his sixth foul and disqualification. Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla inserted Mitchell Robinson to replace him. The Nets promptly fouled Robinson, and the notoriously poor free-throw shooter bricked both.<\/p>\n
Nets first-round draft pick Mikel Brown Jr. capitalized with a last-second 3-pointer to send the game to overtime. Boston missed six of its first seven field goals in the extra session, and Brooklyn built a four-point lead.<\/p>\n
But then the Nets went cold, too, failing to score after Michael Porter Jr.\u2019s 3-pointer with 2:01 to play. Brown took \u2014 and missed \u2014 the final five shots of the night for his team, including two layups in the final five seconds that would have iced the game.<\/p>\n
George grabbed the rebound off the rookie\u2019s final miss and called timeout, setting the stage for Tatum\u2019s heroics. He shook Brown and Keon Ellis and drilled a pull-up jumper from the left elbow.<\/p>\n
It was Tatum\u2019s first game-winning shot since he returned from Achilles surgery in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a hell of a feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cJust kind of getting back to doing things that I used to do before I was injured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum celebrates a thrilling overtime win over the Nets as he leaves the court. Stuart Cahill\/Boston Herald<\/p>\n
Along with his scoring, much of which he created with strong drives through traffic, Tatum also had eight assists, five rebounds, one block and no turnovers in 42 minutes. He became just the second Celtic ever with a 40-point, eight-assist, zero-turnover performance, joining Larry Bird.<\/p>\n
Tatum also survived an apparent injury scare, briefly subbing out late in regulation before returning. He said he \u201cbanged knees\u201d with Randle and got \u201ca little stinger.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3-1 Celtics, now riding a three-game win streak, will host the Chicago Bulls on Friday. The Nets, who lost a similarly bonkers game<\/a> to Boston in double overtime last season, fell to 0-4.<\/p>\n Though he\u2019s tweaked elements of his rotation from game to game, Mazzulla has kept his starting five consistent so far this season.<\/p>\n White, George, Tatum, Robinson and Jordan Walsh have formed the Celtics\u2019 top unit in all four games, including both ends of their first back-to-back of the season. Despite some inconsistency from those individual players, the group entered Tuesday with the second-best net rating of any NBA lineup that had logged at least 20 minutes together.<\/p>\n The Nets came in with the league\u2019s fifth-worst net rating and fourth-worst field-goal percentage, but they shot better than 60% of the field for much of the first quarter and took a 31-26 lead into the second.<\/p>\n Robinson was active early with a pair of offensive rebounds, and he was the center of attention in the opening minutes of the second quarter. After dropping Moritz Wagner with a hard shoulder in the paint \u2014 to which the former Celtics forward responded with a made 3-pointer and a cutting dunk \u2014 Robinson drew the ire of Noah Clowney when he lightly shoved the Nets big man from behind after the whistle.<\/p>\n Clowney turned and barked at Robinson, and both players received technical fouls<\/a> during the ensuing altercation.<\/p>\n Robinson finished an alley-oop from Walsh on the next possession, and White followed with an open three. Brooklyn remained a step ahead, however.<\/p>\n That also was the case after Walsh scored four points in 16 seconds around a Baylor Scheierman steal. And after Tatum checked back in and began successfully attacking the paint, leading to a layup and two drawn fouls in a four-possession span. And after Randle was hit with a technical foul for flopping following a nudge from George.<\/p>\n The Nets led for the entire second quarter and took a 61-56 lead at halftime.<\/p>\n Among the biggest first-half issues for Boston: 2-for-16 shooting from 3-point range and 10 turnovers, including three each by George and White. The Celtics improved both in the third quarter, hitting four of their next five threes and shoring up their ball security, but still lagged behind the underdog visitors.<\/p>\n Momentum finally turned, with three minutes remaining in the quarter, on a hustle play by Sam Hauser.<\/p>\n After Pritchard couldn\u2019t can a wide-open three and Luka Garza threw away the offensive rebound, the veteran wing dove on the floor to poke the loose ball away from Chaney Johnson and help Boston retain possession. Hauser then hit a 3-pointer off the ensuing inbounds pass to cut Brooklyn\u2019s lead to two, 77-75.<\/p>\n Scheierman followed that up with a no-dip corner three before Tatum put Boston in front with an iso triple over Brown.<\/p>\n Second later, Garza \u2014 who saw extended third-quarter minutes with No. 2 center Queta battling foul trouble \u2014 drew a charge against Randle. Tatum sank his 11th and 12th free throws of the game on the next possession, and Hauser capped the pivotal stretch with another 3-pointer, this one putting the Celtics up 86-82 entering the fourth.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the game-changer,\u201d said George, who went for 20-7-7 in 36 minutes. \u201cI thought they came in, they ignited the crowd. They were diving on balls. They were getting extra possessions. We were at that stretch (trailing by) five, six points. We couldn\u2019t quite get over the hump, and those guys got us over the hump. And I thought from that point on, it ignited our team, and everybody played with that same intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nets then rallied, getting consecutive threes from Porter and Brown to reclaim a 99-98 lead. Another by Brown after an offensive rebound made it 102-99, and one by Porter broke a 102-102 tie after the still-hot Hauser banked in a 15-footer. A Randle layup after a Clowney block stretched the lead to five.<\/p>\n A 12-2 Boston run seemed to put Brooklyn to bed before a late sequence of Celtics errors made overtime necessary. Mazzulla said he told Tatum to thank Queta for his costly foul, since the buzzer-beater wouldn\u2019t have happened without it. (Tatum deflected blame away from the big man, saying Queta was only in a position to foul because Tatum missed a free throw.)<\/p>\n Mazzulla also said he would treat the game \u201clike a loss\u201d during the team\u2019s next film study. But had plenty of praise for his superstar, who now has delivered three straight strong performances \u2014 including two excellent ones<\/a> \u2014 since his rough season opener<\/a> last Tuesday in Detroit.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just gave the game exactly what it needed,\u201d the head coach said of Tatum. \u201cI mean, even throughout the game, I thought he was playing the right way. I thought he trusted on both ends of the floor. He was patient. He was getting downhill. Even some of the shots he missed, I thought they were great shots. Defensively, he was active. He had rebounds.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he just gave the game exactly what it needed, stayed in the present moment, and you got to see his greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum hit an overtime buzzer-beater to cap a wild, roller-coaster victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[9127,98,100,99,11943,76699,140424,76698,76697,25457,140426,140425,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-385027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-boston-celtics","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-celtics","tag-celtics-highlights","tag-celtics-nets","tag-celtics-recap","tag-celtics-score","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-jayson-tatum-buzzer-beater","tag-jayson-tatum-game-winner","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CELTICSsc-010_23799f.jpg\")
Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum celebrates his game-winning shot in overtime with his teammates after a win over the Nets. Stuart Cahill\/Boston Herald<\/p>\n![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CELTICSsc-008_dd787f.jpg\")
Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum shoots his game-winning shot in overtime to sink the Nets. Stuart Cahill\/Boston Herald<\/p>\n