Celtics add to Pistons woes

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — The Boston Celtics rallied from a 21-point deficit to hand the Detroit Pistons a record-tying 28th straight National Basketball Association defeat, 128-122, in overtime.

On a night when sensational San Antonio rookie Victor Wembanyama scored 30 points to lead the Spurs to a 118-105 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic was virtually perfect in a Denver Nuggets win, the Pistons were on the wrong side of history again.

The Pistons, already the first team to lose 27 straight games in a single season, are now the second team to lose 28 in a row — joining the Philadelphia 76ers who had a 28-game skid spanning the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.

Kristaps Porzingis's dunk — after Jayson Tatum grabbed the rebound of a miss by Detroit's Isaiah Livers — effectively sealed it, putting Boston up, 123-117, with 45.2 seconds left in overtime.

Boston escaped with their perfect home record intact at 15-0, improving their league-leading record to 24-6.

For a while, however, it looked like a desperate Detroit might take advantage of a Celtics squad expecting an easy win — something Boston coach Joe Mazzulla had warned was a danger for his team.

"Each loss they're actually playing harder because they want to win," Mazzulla said.

"It's going to happen."

The Pistons had 31 second-chance points and with Cade Cunningham scoring 22 of his 31 points in the first half led by as many as 21 on the way to a 66-47 lead at the break.

Cunningham added six rebounds and nine assists and Jaden Ivey scored 22 points with 10 rebounds. But 19 Detroit turnovers led to 27 Celtics points.

The Celtics out-scored the Pistons 35-16 in the third quarter to head into the fourth tied at 82-82.

Detroit twice took a four-point lead in the fourth. A Tatum layup followed by a Porzingis three-pointer put Boston up by six with 1:56 left in the fourth, but Bojan Bogdanovic's tip-in for Detroit tied it up at 108-108.

Porzingis scored 35 points and Tatum scored 31 with 10 assists for the Celtics, who were without injured Jaylen Brown.