BOSTON-Jayson Tatum scored 19 points and Gordon Hayward finished with 18 to help the Boston Celtics hold off the Detroit Pistons 118-110 on Wednesday night.
Hayward added eight assists and five rebounds in his first start since Dec. 21. Al Horford finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists. Jaylen Brown had 17 points and seven rebounds.
The Celtics have won seven out of their last nine. The loss ended the Pistons' four-game win streak.
Blake Griffin led Detroit with 32 points and eight rebounds. Andre Drummond added 21 points and 17 rebounds.
After trailing by 11 in the first half, Boston outscored Detroit 34-20 in the third quarter and led by as many as 28 in the fourth.
Celtics All-Star Kyrie Irving sat for the second straight game with a strained right knee, and Terry Rozier was also sidelined with an illness.
Coach Brad Stevens adjusted to their absences by starting Smart and Tatum in the backcourt and rounded out his lineup with Hayward, Horford and Marcus Morris.
Bucks 106, Pacers 97
INDIANAPOLIS-Giannis Antetokounmpo started fast and finished strong, picking up a triple-double to help the Milwaukee Bucks rally late for a 106-97 victory over the Indiana Pacers.
The three-time All-Star had 33 points, 19 rebounds and 11 assists, leading the Bucks back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit. NBA-leading Milwaukee has won eight of nine overall and seven straight on the road-its longest road winning streak since 1984-85.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 20 points and Darren Collison added 14 to lead Indiana, which had a six-game winning streak snapped just before the All-Star break.
The Pacers had no answers for Antetokounmpo in the opening quarter, when he made five of the Bucks' nine baskets and had assists on the other four. They couldn't stop him late, either-he scored 12 points in a game-closing 30-11 run.
Indiana charged back from an eight-point halftime deficit to take the lead in the third quarter and extended the margin to 86-76 on Tyreke Evans' 3-pointer with 9:36 to go.
Antetokounmpo answered with a layup to start the comeback and made back-to-back baskets to tie it at 95 with 3:50 to play. With 2:36 to go, he found a wide open Ersan Ilyasova for the tiebreaking layup, and the Pacers only scored two points the rest of the game.
76ers 126, Knicks 111
NEW YORK-Joel Embiid had 26 points, 14 rebounds and one flying leap over an award-winning actress into the crowd, and the Philadelphia 76ers handed the Knicks their 18th straight loss with a 126-111 victory.
Tobias Harris scored 25 points and Ben Simmons had 18 for the 76ers, who bounced back from their 112-109 home loss to Boston on Tuesday, sending themselves into the All-Star break with a 37-21 record.
They had times Wednesday where it appeared they'd win easily, and other moments where the game became much more difficult than necessary against the team with the NBA's worst record.
Allonzo Trier scored 19 points and fellow rookie Mitchell Robinson had 14 points and 13 rebounds for the Knicks (10-46), who remain mired in the longest losing streak during one season in franchise history.
The 76ers made 14 of 18 shots (78 percent) in the first quarter, yet only led 37-33 after the Knicks outworked them on the offensive boards to get up nine more shot attempts. Philadelphia then pushed the lead to 71-55 at halftime.
Philadelphia seemed headed for a rout when it scored eight straight points in the third to open an 88-62 advantage after a free throw by Simmons, but the Knicks put up 36 points in the period and were within single digits going to the fourth.
It was during the third that Embiid gave the 76ers and plenty of people sitting courtside when he tried to chase down a ball going to the sideline. He went flying just over the head of actress Regina King , who won the Best Supporting Actress award at the Golden Globes, and crashed into the MSG Network statistician working next to broadcaster Mike Breen. The statistician somehow stayed in the game.
The Knicks had their moments, highlighted by rookie Kevin Knox's powerful slam over Simmons . But they don't have the firepower to beat a team like the 76ers, or anyone else in the league over the last 2 months.