De’Aaron Fox scores 40 to bring Kings back from big deficits, but Celtics hold on to win

The game appeared to be over. The Boston Celtics had an 18-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, and because they clinched the NBA’s best record in their previous game, they sat their key players.

The Kings took advantage, fighting all the way back to take a one-point lead with 27 seconds to go when De’Aaron Fox nailed a 3-pointer, giving him 40 points on the night.

After a Boston bucket, the Kings had three chances after taking a timeout with 7.1 seconds remaining, but they came up short, losing a 101-100 heartbreaker Friday night at TD Garden in Boston. Despite the loss, the Kings clinched a play-in spot in the Western Conference with the Houston Rockets’ loss to the Miami Heat.

Sacramento’s last road trip of the season began Thursday when the Kings blew a 21-point first-half lead in New York. The inverse happened Friday, with Sacramento taking a late lead after storming back from a double-digit deficit.

Both games resulted in losses, growing the likelihood the Kings are forced into the play-in tournament rather than a top-six seed and an automatic playoff berth in the West.

“It definitely sucks, especially tonight,” Kings center Domantas Sabonis said. “We thought we could have had it. We had a chance at the end to steal this game away from them and we just couldn’t come up with the last play.”

Boston’s game-winning basket came from reserve Xavier Tillman with 7.4 seconds remaining. It came after the Kings appeared to make a stop. The Celtics’ offense had nothing going with Sam Hauser trying a layup in the middle of the lane that was blocked by Sabonis.

Keegan Murray grabbed the rebound, but Hauser poked it out of his hands, right to Tillman, who drove the lane and floated the game winner home.

“They know this was tough,” Kings coach Mike Brown said of his players. “We kept fighting and gave ourselves a chance. We didn’t secure the rebound when we had the ball in our hands. Keegan just let them knock it away and they scored on a putback.

“Then we got smacked in the face and it didn’t get called.”

The Kings had one last possession after calling a timeout after Tillman’s basket. Fox got the ball running towards the basket and missed a good look from the right elbow. Murray had a chance at the putback, but it was strong off the backboard. Rookie Colby Jones tried to tap it back in, but he was hit in the face by Svi Mykhailiuk. There was no call and the game ended.

Jones confirmed what replays appeared to show, telling The Sacramento Bee he was hit in the mouth.

“Fox got a great look,” Brown said. “Keegan had a good look on the followup and Colby just gets smacked on the face with 1.7 to go and you’re yelling, ‘Foul! Foul!’ and they said nobody got hit, it was just physical, clean basketball.

“That’s tough to swallow when you see a guy get smacked in the face. It’s tough. ... I don’t know how you miss that one, but we got to move on and get ready for Brooklyn.”

The Kings throughout the night couldn’t string together long enough runs to threaten the NBA’s best team. And they couldn’t score enough to help out Fox, the only player on the team to score more than 16 points. They got good shots throughout the night but made just 17 of 51 from 3-point range (33%) a night after Brown said his team passed up too many open opportunities in New York.

“I thought we did a great job spraying the basketball, we just couldn’t make them,” Brown said.

Brown pointed out his team did well on the offensive glass by outscoring the Celtics 20-8 on second-chance points. They also had the advantage in fastbreak points, 11-6.

Free throws were problematic again for the NBA’s worst shooting team from the charity stripe. They missed six of their 13 free throws in a game decided by one point.

Fox scored 20 of his 40 in the second quarter and 13 more in the fourth. His go-ahead 3 late came off the glass after Payton Pritchard touched the ball on the way up, leaving Fox to put more strength behind it. He confirmed afterwards he was not trying to bank it off the backboard.

The Kings finished shooting 38.4% from the field, which was their fifth-worst mark of the season as they fell to 44-33. The absences of Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter continued to plague Sacramento. The defeat extended the Kings’ losing streak to the Celtics to six games. They haven’t won at TD Garden since March of 2021..

The Kings staged a late 21-1 run in the fourth quarter while Boston kept its second unit on the floor. Jayson Tatum sat after scoring 17 points in 33 minutes. Kristaps Porzingis went to the bench after posting 20 points and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes.

Pritchard led Boston with 21 points while making five 3s. Murray and Harrison Barnes each scored 10 points for Sacramento.

The Kings started off slow, making just 5 of 21 shots in the first quarter. The Celtics had an equally hard time early in the first, going 1 of 9 to start before making 9 of 11 to open a 12-point lead after the opening period.

But then Fox got going. Sacramento’s star point guard scored 20 points in the second quarter to help erase a 16-point deficit going into halftime. Sacramento trailed 54-50 after outscoring Boston 35-27 in the frame. Fox made 4 of 5 from 3-point range and 8 of 10 shots overall. No other Kings player had more than Sabonis’ seven points in the half.

Fox finished three points short of his career-high for a quarter when he scored 23 in the fourth quarter against the Phoenix Suns on Dec. 8.

“Shots started going in,” Fox said. “They’ve been trying different coverages, (so) you see guys switch or not switch. At times, they had some lapses and I got some good looks, and after that, as an NBA player, when you see the shot and you see the ball go in, you start making much tougher shots.”

Sabonis recorded his 60th consecutive double-double with 16 points and 16 rebounds, the longest single-season streak since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.

Sabonis became the fifth player in league history with a streak of 60 or more. He tied Elvin Hayes for the seventh-longest streak in NBA history. It was his 73rd double-double of the season, giving him the most since Moses Malone had 72 in 1982-83.

The Celtics were without star forward Jaylen Brown due to a strained left hand and and guard Derrick White with a back contusion. Neither injury is considered serious. The Celtics, who clinched the NBA’s best record with Wednesday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, are managing their stars before the playoffs begin April 20, coach Joe Mazzulla said before the game.

Boston came into Friday with a plus-12.0 net rating, which would be the highest in NBA history over a full season. The 1996-97 Chicago Bulls were plus-11.8 with Michael Jordan while the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors were plus-11.4 with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant.

“Veteran team, a lot of playoff experience,” Mike Brown said. “Everybody can seem like they can pass, dribble and shoot at a high level. We have what we call hot players. These guys, you look at their hot player list, you might as well put the whole roster up there.”