Denver pulls away to beat Celtics

The Nuggets showed why they are one of the best teams in the Western Conference, pulling away from the Celtics in the fourth quarter for a 114-105 victory on Monday night to give them a sweep of the season series.

BOSTON – The highlight of the evening came when Isaiah Thomas was honored for his contributions to the Celtics with a video tribute and standing ovation.

 Playing at the TD Garden for the first time since the 2017 Eastern Conference finals, Thomas became emotional when the 90-second video was shown during a first-quarter timeout and the capacity crowd cheered him on.

 And the Denver Nuggets guard even made a brief appearance on the floor, playing seven first-half minutes against his former team after being recently dropped from the rotation.

 Then, after the emotions died down, the Celtics and Nuggets got down to playing a highly entertaining game on Monday night.

 The Nuggets showed why they are one of the best teams in the Western Conference, pulling away from the Celtics in the fourth quarter for a 114-105 victory to give them a sweep of the season series.

 Using an 11-0 run that began in the closing seconds of the third quarter, the Nuggets (47-22) took control and dropped the Celtics to 43-28.

 Thomas, who played two-plus seasons with the Celtics, was overwhelmed by the response he received nearly two years after leaving the team via a trade.

 “Well deserved 10 times over,’’ said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. “I can’t say enough great things about Isaiah. I could sit up here all night. That video tribute was great. It was emotional. It could have lasted a lot longer.

 “Greatly appreciative of our time together. I was glad that he got that moment.’’

 The Celtics and Nuggets had 11 lead changes in a game that was tied four times, but the Celtics let it get away with that 11-0 stretch.

 Kyrie Irving, who missed eight of his first nine shots, finished with 30 points on 10 for 23 shooting while Al Horford added 20 points with four 3-pointers. Marcus Morris chipped in with 13 and Marcus Smart had 10 for the Celtics.

 Center Nikola Jokic was a difficult matchup for the Celtics and had 21 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists and three blocked shots while Will Barton added 20. Thomas missed his only two shots and had two assists in his brief stint as coach Michael Malone, in a classy move, got him some minutes in the homecoming.

 The Celtics went from holding an 80-75 lead late in the third quarter to trailing, 86-80, early in the fourth quarter when they gave up the 11 straight points.

 Torrey Craig got the Nuggets within 80-78 by hitting a 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds to go in the third quarter, and the Celtics made two miscues after that to allow Denver to pull even going into the last quarter.

 Stevens called a timeout after Craig’s basket, and Jaylen Brown long pass from underneath the basket wound up out of bounds, giving the Nuggets the ball with 1.1 seconds to go. Then, Craig was left alone on a backcut and made a basket at the buzzer to make it 80-80.

 The Celtics never really recovered from that as the Nuggets never trailed in the fourth quarter and leading by as many as 12.

 “We just need to make sure we do a better job moving on to the next play,’’ said Horford of the end of the third quarter miscues. “I think it did (affect us). It shouldn’t but I think it did. Definitely disappointing on our end. We felt like we played a really good game back and forth and then it just got away from us in the fourth.

 “If you’re not doing the right things and not locked in enough, that can happen.’’

 Stevens took the blame for calling the timeout instead of just running a random play at the end of the quarter.

 “I probably shouldn’t have called the timeout,’’ said Stevens. “I’m going to lose it going into the fourth. You think maybe you can get a matchup down the court then that’s a good thing. Otherwise be safe. I shouldn’t have done that.

 “We didn’t respond well. We needed to respond better than that and we didn’t. We’ll be in that position again where something bad happens and the air gets taken out of your team a little bit and you have to respond and we didn’t do that against a good team who took advantage of it.’’

 A 3-poiner by Horford pulled the Celtics within 93-90 with 7:23 to go, but the Nuggets answered that with an 13-4 run to move in front, 106-94, with 3:46 left. Jokic connected on two 3-pointers in a span of 40 seconds.

 The Celtics got as close as 106-101 when Irving hit a 3-pointer with just over a minute to go.

 The Nuggets led, 24-22, after one quarter and were up, 55-52, at halftime.

 The Celtics had a pair of four-point leads in the second quarter, the last coming on a driving layup by Terry Rozier with 7:53 remaining in the half to make it 34-30. But after holding a 36-33 advantage, the Celtics were outscored, 11-2, to fall behind, 44-38 with 3:58 left in the half.

 The Nuggets, who got nine points from Barton in the quarter, had a 50-43 lead before Irving scored the Celtics’ final six points in the last minute to get them within three.