Up three heading into the fourth quarter Friday night, the Celtics showed a hype video starring Isaiah Thomas on the TD Garden Jumbotron.
Thomas, whose late-game exploits during his brief but memorable Boston tenure earned him the nickname “The King in the Fourth,” was back in town for the Celtics’ celebration of one of his greatest games: 52 points, including 29 in the final quarter, in a Dec. 30, 2016 win over the Miami Heat.
With Thomas watching from a courtside seat alongside team owner Bill Chisholm, Boston’s shooters did the former fan favorite proud.
The Celtics buried the undermanned Heat beneath an avalanche of 3-pointers, going 10-for-15 from beyond the arc in the fourth quarter to turn a tight game into a 129-116 victory.
Sam Hauser provided four of those 10 threes, including back-to-back makes to open the quarter. Derrick White and Jaylen Brown each hit two, with Anfernee Simons and Hugo Gonzalez adding one apiece. The IT-esque eruption helped Boston overcome a lopsided shot margin — the Heat attempted 20 more field goals in the game — created by Miami’s effective offensive rebounding.
“We can play so many different ways,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “And I thought tonight, it was like, we’re going to win the game with our offense because of how good their defense is. If we can generate advantages, and if we can put them in matchup situations, I think that’ll put them on their heels a little bit.”
Overall, the Celtics shot 48.8% from 3-point range in the win, including highly efficient efforts from White (9-for-14, 33 points) and Hauser (5-for-6, 15 points). White also had six assists, five rebounds, four blocks and was a plus-27 in one of his best games of the season to date.
Brown scored 24 of his 30 points after halftime, going 9-for-18 from the field, 2-for-4 from three and 10-for-11 from the foul line.
The Celtics snapped a two-game win streak and improved to 16-12. They’ll visit the Toronto Raptors on Saturday. Miami fell to 15-13.
The Heat, who won in Brooklyn the previous night to snap a five-game losing streak, were playing without five rotation players, including starters Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins and Davion Mitchell. The Celtics were at full strength outside of rehabbing superstar Jayson Tatum, with Hauser returning after leaving Monday’s loss to Detroit with an ankle sprain.
The Celtics led 30-29 after the first quarter despite attempting nine fewer field goals than Miami.
Josh Minott sparked a 7-0 Boston run when he, after turning the ball over at the other end, stole a Heat pass and converted a fast-break layup. A minute later, Minott snatched the ball away from Jaime Jacquez Jr. and flipped a pass to White as he was sailing out of bounds. White dished to a trailing Gonzalez, who posterized Jacquez with a two-handed dunk.
What a play 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/njFakUSUx1
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 20, 2025
The Heat continued to control the glass in the second quarter, helping them build an eight-point lead. But Boston rallied to tie the game at 58-58 entering halftime — despite allowing Miami to grab 11 offensive rebounds and hold a 17-shot edge in field-goal attempts.
With Brown largely quiet in the first half, White spearheaded the Celtics’ scoring with 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting before the break, plus three blocks at the other end. He’s the only Celtics player in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97) to make five 3-pointers and block three shots in a first half, which he’s now done twice.
Officiating was a point of contention for Boston in the first half. Brown picked up a technical foul for arguing a first-quarter whistle that went against Minott, and Mazzulla accosted referee Jacyn Goble over what he viewed as uncalled contact on a Gonzalez layup. Gonzalez also protested the no-call, arguing that fellow rookie Kasparas Jakucionis swatted his arm on the transition bucket.
Payton Pritchard also had words with a member of Zach Zarba’s officiating crew after he was hip-checked to the parquet while fighting for a loose ball just before halftime.
The third quarter followed a similar script to the second: Miami building a seven-point advantage, and Boston responding. Simons scored two go-ahead baskets in the period, hitting a trailer 3-pointer off a Pritchard feed and a running layup after a Brown steal. White also knocked down two more threes.
After being held to six points before halftime, Brown poured in 15 in the third, including a layup in traffic that put Boston up 92-89 heading into the fourth.
Hauser’s rapid-fire threes to open the fourth, sandwiched around Gonzalez’s second steal of the night, put the Celtics ahead by seven. Miami never recovered. Boston led by double digits for the final nine minutes, its lead peaking at 19 points as its threes rained down. Those included a high-arcing, heat-check bank shot from White, whose nine 3-point makes tied his career high.
“I don’t know,” White said, shaking his head. “I think I made a few in a row, and everybody was like, there was no chance you were driving on that one. So I just tried to get some space, and the bank was open.”
The Celtics, who played nearly half of the game without a traditional center on the floor, also tightened up their rebounding after halftime, surrendering just three offensive boards in each of the final two quarters.
“It was a lot of big plays,” Hauser said. “Hugo made some big plays. We made some shots. And I think we were just getting the shots that we wanted to get. I think that was a big part of it. And then getting some timely stops in the fourth quarter helps, too. Rebounding against them is pretty tough, but I feel like we got just enough to help us expand that lead.”
Boston made just one fourth-quarter sub before garbage time, subbing Brown in for Neemias Queta after building a 115-102 lead with six minutes remaining. (Queta, the lone big man in Mazzulla’s rotation, took two hard falls under Miami’s basket in the third quarter but remained in the game.) Hauser, Simons and Gonzalez — all difference-makers off the bench for Boston — each played the final 17-plus minutes of the game.
Hauser and Simons both were plus-13 in the win. Gonzalez was plus-22 in his career-high 29 minutes, tallying 10 points, eight rebounds, two steals and one block.
It was a bounce-back outing for Hauser, who’d missed his previous 12 3-pointers entering Friday, and for Gonzalez, who was benched in Monday’s loss to the Pistons.
“His defensive instincts are better than most young guys have been, and I think that gives him a chance,” Mazzulla said of Gonzalez, Boston’s 19-year-old first-round draft pick. “Also, that’s a skill, being able to play that hard. I think we have a bunch of guys that understand that on our team. He’s one of them, and you saw him at his best tonight. We’ve got to keep that up.”