BOSTON — Tyler Zeller banked in a shot from under the basket as time expired to give the Boston Celtics an 85-84 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night.
Isaiah Thomas led Boston with 21 points, Jae Crowder had 18 and Avery Bradley added 13 points and seven rebounds to help the Celtics rebound from a 31-point loss in Cleveland on Tuesday night.
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WHO: Celtics at Pelicans
WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday
TV: CSN
After Boston blew an eight-point lead in the final 2 1/2 minutes, Marcus Smart made a long inbounds pass to Zeller under the basket. He banked it off the backboard with 0.1 seconds showing on the clock. It went through the net as the buzzer sounded and was upheld after a review.
Gordon Hayward gave Utah the lead with 1.7 seconds left with a fallaway jumper from the right baseline. Derrick Favors and Trey Burke scored 16 points each for Utah, which had its three-game winning streak snapped. Rudy Gobert had 10 points and 16 rebounds, and Hayward scored 13 points.
The Jazz trailed 81-73 with 2 1/2 minutes to play, but rallied to slice it to 83-82 on Burke’s driving basket with 54.8 seconds left.
After Thomas missed a 3-pointer from the right wing and Crowder’s put-back was blocked by Gobert, Burke’s drive bounced off the rim and out of bounds off one of Boston’s players with 9.5 seconds to go.
Hayward dribbled from the top of the key before nailing his shot.
The Celtics, who led by six points after three quarters, pulled to their biggest lead of the game, 66-57, on Thomas’ 3-pointer early in the fourth. They led by nine twice more before the Jazz went on a 7-1 run, closing it to 71-68 on Favors’ jumper with 6:05 to play.
Crowder then scored Boston’s next five points to trigger a 10-5 spurt as the Celtics opened an 81-73 edge on Thomas’ transition jumper from the right wing with 2 1/2 minutes to go.
Boston led by one at the half despite shooting just 32.6 percent (15 of 46). The Jazz didn’t fare much better, hitting only 37.1 (13 of 35).
In a first half filled with poor outside shooting and sluggish play, Marcus Smart’s 3-point play with 0.8 seconds left in the half gave the Celtics a 34-33 lead at intermission.
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