It was a classic trap game — a quick one-game road trip against a lottery-bound, injury-ravaged opponent with nothing to lose — and it nearly ensnared the Celtics.
Boston trailed early in the fourth quarter against the remnants of the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night before locking in late and pulling away for a 117-112 win at FedEx Forum.
Backup center Luka Garza helped the Celtics survive the upset bid by scoring a season-high 22 points and pulling down six of his team’s 18 offensive rebounds.
Jaylen Brown finished with 30 points, six assists and five rebounds — his third straight 30-point game — and Derrick White scored 11 of his 14 points during Boston’s resurgent fourth quarter.
The Celtics also withstood the first true dud for Jayson Tatum since his return from Achilles surgery earlier this month. The superstar wing grabbed nine rebounds but had as many turnovers (three) as made field goals (3-for-15, 11 points).
The Grizzlies were missing nearly all of their recognizable names, from former All-Star Ja Morant (elbow) to second-year big man Zach Edey (ankle) to veteran guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (finger). When first-round draft pick Cedric Coward was scratched for personal reasons before tipoff, he became the 11th Memphis player to be ruled out for Friday’s matchup.
Of the 12 Grizzlies who played in the team’s 131-95 loss at TD Garden on Nov. 12, just three were in uniform for the rematch (Jaylen Wells, Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Cam Spencer). Their top scorer on Friday was an Uxbridge native who had made just four previous NBA appearances: Tyler Burton, who had 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting (5-of-9 from 3-point range) while playing on a 10-day contract.
The Celtics, meanwhile, were nearly whole. Their only unavailable player Friday night was center Nikola Vucevic, who made the trip to Memphis as he recovers from finger surgery. (Vucevic is scheduled to be reevaluated in late March or early April.)
It took quite a while for that mismatch to show up on the court, though. Seven minutes in, the Grizzlies held a 19-16 lead and were controlling the shot margin.
Payton Pritchard (19 points, 5-of-13 shooting) sparked his team’s sluggish offense with 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting during one four-minute stretch, with Garza converting the sixth man’s lone miss into an and-one putback. Pritchard closed the first quarter with a mental error, however, taking too long to bring the ball across halfcourt after DeJon Jarreau shook Hugo Gonzalez on a driving dunk.
The eight-second violation resulted in one of Pritchard’s four turnovers, but Gonzalez atoned for his defensive lapse by racing for a buzzer-beating fast-break slam after a Baylor Scheierman steal. The rookie’s highlight-reel finish put the Celtics ahead 29-27 after one.
But Memphis regained the lead moments into the second quarter and held it for the next five minutes. The Celtics weren’t able to create any distance from their pesky hosts until Brown hit a pair of 3-pointers late in the half — one off a nifty underhanded pass by Neemias Queta, the other off a Scheierman offensive rebound. Strong work on the offensive glass was a saving grace for Boston, which grabbed 10 first-half offensive boards (by eight different players) to offset poor shooting from most of their perimeter players.
Tatum, who’d been quiet to that point, added a three of his own to snap an 0-for-8 start and put the Celtics up 55-48.
That cushion quickly shrunk, however. Burton hit back-to-back threes to cut Memphis’ deficit to one at halftime, 55-54.
The Celtics then struggled with ball security throughout the third quarter, committing five turnovers in the period to the Grizzlies’ zero. Memphis scored on all five of Boston’s giveaways as it built two six-point leads.
Burton also baited Brown into multiple costly fouls, including one with less than a second remaining on the shot clock. By the end of the third quarter, the 26-year-old had scored as many points (20) as he had in his entire NBA career before Friday.
Garza drew contact on the Celtics’ final possession of the third, then scored on two of their first four trips of the fourth. Ty Jerome matched those makes with eight quick points, and Jaylen Wells turned an errant Pritchard pass into a fast-break layup that made it 98-91.
Only then did Boston finally begin to look like a championship hopeful playing against a skeleton-crew opponent. White responded with three straight baskets to tie the game, followed by two more makes at the rim by Garza.
The Celtics then reinserted Tatum and Brown, who both sat for the first 6:19 of the first quarter, and ripped off the remainder of a 21-5 run. A Scheierman layup — capping a possession kept alive by two Garza OREBs — all but sealed the win by putting Boston up 112-103 with 1:47 remaining.