(Basketball news) The Boston Celtics showed their title intentions this season as they beat the Milwaukee Bucks 140-99. For the Celtics, Jayson Tatum scored 40 points, Jaylen Brown added 30 as while Al Horford and Malcom Brogdon scored 14 points. For the Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo led the scoring with 24 points as forward Khris Middleton left midway through the third quarter after taking an elbow to the face from Brown while Jrue Holiday finished with just 6 points.

The Celtics (53-24) moved within two games of the Bucks (55-22) as Boston won the season series with the Bucks 2-1, which would give the Celtics the tiebreaker if both teams finish with the same record. Boston beat the Bucks in seven games in last season’s East semifinals.

“It does matter,” Brown said about the possibility of earning the No. 1 seed. “We want to finish out the season strong and see what happens.”

“This doesn’t really mean much,” Brown said. “If we play them again, we’ve got to be ready to take their best shot.”

“We responded well from the jump,” Tatum said. “That’s all that I wanted and we wanted as a team, regardless of if we won or not, just to respond and play better than we did last game.”

The New Orleans Pelicans continued their resurgence in the West Conference Standings as they beat the Denver Nuggets 107-88. For the Pelicans, Brandon Ingram had 31 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists for his third triple-double of the season as Jonas Valanciunas had 15 points and 12 rebounds and CJ McCollum scored 23 points. For the Nuggets, Jamal Murray had 21 points and Bruce Brown added 19 points. Denver lead the Western Conference but dropped to three games over Memphis with six to play. The Pelicans tied Minnesota for seventh in the West with their sixth victory in seven games.

“We know that they’re missing a huge component to the team in Jokic but it’s important for us no matter who’s on the floor we execute on both ends of the floor,” New Orleans coach Willie Green said. “I thought we did that.”

“When you’re playing with the MVP, things are a lot easier,” Denver coach Michael Malone said.

“I don’t think about it that much, just trying to win every night,” Brown said. “Because we’ve got a little lead we’re focused on trying to play our best every night.”

“We just didn’t make shots,” Brown said. “We shot 14 percent from three and were terrible from the free-throw line. That was the game.”

“He’s playing at a high level,” Green said. “Everybody’s getting the opportunity to see him display his game and we’re putting the ball in his hands a lot more, allowing him to be a playmaker.”

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