NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Boston’s All-NBA star Jayson Tatum finished with 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists and the Celtics went up by 20 (again) but pulled away for a 115-93 win over the host New York Knicks on Saturday afternoon in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series.

Celtics’ Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard scored a team-high 23 points off the bench for Boston, which cut the Knicks’ lead to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. Jaylen Brown scored 19 points and Derrick White had 17.

New York’s Jalen Brunson scored 27 points on 9-for-21 shooting to lead the Knicks. Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 21 points and 15 rebounds.

After struggling to score in the first two games of the series, the Celtics found their rhythm on offense. Boston shot 48.2 percent (40 of 83) overall and 50 percent (20 of 40) from 3-point range, and New York shot 40 percent (32 of 80) from the field and 20 percent (5 of 25) from beyond the arc.

Tatum made a basket to put Boston on top 112-89 with 2:40 remaining. He assisted on a 3-pointer by Al Horford on the next possession, and Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla rested his starters for the remainder of the game with the score out of reach.

The Celtics led 96-70 at the end of the third quarter. Boston led by as many as 31 points after Pritchard made a basket with 1:42 to go in the quarter, and the Knicks trimmed slightly into the deficit by scoring the final five points of the quarter on an alley-oop dunk by Mitchell Robinson, a floating jump shot by Brunson and a free throw by Robinson.

Boston sprinted to a 36-20 lead at the end of the first quarter. Pritchard drove the ball across half court and hit a baseline jumper as time expired to put the Celtics on top by 16.

By halftime, the Celtics increased their lead to 71-46. Brown buried a 3-pointer to put Boston at the 70-point mark with 30.5 seconds left in the half, and he made one of two free throws in the closing seconds to give the Celtics a 25-point advantage.

–Field Level Media

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NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau had a simple message for his players heading into their matchup against the Boston Celtics in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series.

The Knicks grabbed a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series after storming back from 20-point deficits in back-to-back games. Thibodeau told his players to forget all about that.

“It’s really irrelevant,” Thibodeau said. “I think the big thing is to understand what it’s going to take to win Game 3, to not get lost in if you’re up (in the series). That doesn’t guarantee anything. What we have to understand is what we have to do to win Game 3.”

Meanwhile, the Celtics expect to play with a hint of desperation when Game 3 tips off on Saturday afternoon in New York.

Boston finished 61-21 in the regular season and earned the second seed in the conference playoffs. But the Celtics fumbled big leads in the first two games of the series, which resulted in a 108-105 overtime win by the third-seeded Knicks in Game 1 and a 91-90 win for the Knicks in Game 2.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla knows the series will not get any easier at Madison Square Garden.

“You’re down 2-0 heading on the road,” Mazzulla said. “You have an understanding of your environment and what you’re up against. There’s also obviously a lot of things that we’re doing well, but then there’s things that we need to be extremely better at in those situations.

“We’re down 0-2. We’ve got to get on the road and we’ve got to find a way to win.”

For Boston, that likely means Jayson Tatum will need to play better. He is averaging 18 points in the first two games but he is shooting a lowly 28.6 percent (12 of 42) overall and 25 percent (5 of 20) from beyond the arc.

Jaylen Brown (21.5 points per game) and Derrick White (19.5) lead the Celtics in scoring in the series, but the team has struggled to find its rhythm on offense. Boston is shooting 35.6 percent overall and 25 percent from 3-point range in the first two games.

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KANSAS CITY – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – After meeting with Boston Red Sox principal owner John Henry, veteran slugger Rafael Devers remained at designated hitter for Friday night’s road game against the Kansas City Royals.

Devers, a three-time All-Star at third base, already lost that spot on the field when the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman to a three-year contract in February. The nine-year veteran was vocal this week about not wanting to take over at first base, at least not full time.

Devers met with Henry and manager Alex Cora before the game. Boston’s chief baseball officer, Craig Breslow, who joined team president Sam Kennedy and Henry on the trip to Kansas City, said Henry “seems to have had a productive conversation (with Devers), and that’s where it is at right now.”

Cora also called it “a good conversation,” although he said no decision was made about Devers’ position going forward.

Devers “expressed his feelings. John did the same. I think everybody saw who was here, so I think that carries weight in the clubhouse,” Cora said.

The first base vacancy arose when Triston Casas went down with a season-ending injury to his left knee on May 2. Casas had surgery on his left patella.

Devers said on Thursday that the Red Sox floated the idea of him moving to first shortly after Casas’ injury. He said the team “can’t expect me to play every single position out there.”

Devers, who has played exclusively at DH this season, started the season slowly at the plate, going 0-for-19 with 15 strikeouts before breaking into the hit column in his sixth game.

He has rebounded of late, hitting .365 in his last 13 games to raise his batting average to .253. He went 1-for-5 and drove in Boston’s only run in a 2-1 loss to the Royals in 12 innings on Friday.

Devers has a career batting average of .278. In his nine seasons in the majors, he has 206 home runs and 664 RBIs.

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Before he went way off script to question the Red Sox organization and team General Manager Craig Breslow, current designated hitter Rafael Devers had two hits, including a home run, and the Boston Red Sox used four pitchers to earn a 5-0 victory over the visiting Texas Rangers on Thursday.

Devers made it a five-run lead when he hit a solo home run against reliever Jacob Latz in the seventh inning. It was his sixth home run of the season. Devers also had an RBI single in the fifth.

“In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH, so right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position,” said Devers to reporters through an interpreter (Spanish-English).

“I don’t feel that they stayed true to their word,” he said. “They told me that I was going to be playing this position, DH, and now they’re going back on that. So I just don’t think they stayed true to their word,” said Devers. “They’ve told me I’m a little hard-headed. [But] they already asked me to change once, and this time, I don’t think I can be as flexible.”

Back to the ballgame, Ceddanne Rafaela also had two hits for the Red Sox, who had six total hits, while winning consecutive games for the first time this month.

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – New York’s all-star guard Jalen Brunson made two free throws with 12.7 seconds to play, lifting the Knickerbockers to a 91-90 win over the host Boston Celtics on Wednesday, resulting in an astonishing 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series.

Boston had a chance to recover in the final seconds, but Mikal Bridges knocked the ball away from Jayson Tatum and New York took possession.

NY’s Josh Hart had a game-high 23 points for the Knicks who trailed by 20 points in the third quarter and by 16 in the fourth. The Knicks received 21 points and 17 rebounds from center Karl-Anthony Towns.

Bridges put up 14 points — all in the fourth quarter. Brunson finished with 17 points and a game-high seven assists.

Derrick White and Jaylen Brown each scored 20 points for the Celtics.

Game 3 of the best-of-seven series will be played Saturday afternoon in New York.

New York took its first lead on a Brunson layup that made it 87-86 with 1:59 to play. Another Brunson layup capped a 21-2 run that stretched New York’s lead to three points before two Tatum free throws pulled the Celtics within one point with 44.9 seconds left.

Boston took a 90-89 lead on a Tatum dunk with 18.5 seconds to go, but Brunson knocked down two free throws on the ensuing possession.

Tatum, who averaged 26.8 points per game during the regular season, was held to 13 points, but he grabbed 14 rebounds.

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – New York’s Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby each scored 29 points as the visiting Knicks pulled-off a 108-105 overtime victory against the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday night.

The Knicks overcame a 20-point deficit in the third quarter and sealed the win when Mikal Bridges stole the ball from Jaylen Brown after Boston inbounded the ball with three seconds to play.

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The Boston Celtics will be looking to remain unbeaten against the visiting New York Knicks this season when the teams meet in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday night.

The Knicks lost each of their four regular-season games against the Celtics — and the first three losses came by at least 13 points. Boston also beat New York 119-117 in overtime April 8.

“Obviously, (we have to) play better than we did (against them) throughout the regular season,” said Knicks guard Jalen Brunson. “Be better, ready to do it from the jump, knowing it’s going to be a game of runs, knowing that they’re capable of doing a lot of great things.

“I feel like we played better in that (fourth) game. We adjusted from the first three times we played them, obviously still not getting it done, but definitely played better and competed better than the first three games. So that’s something we can look at and build off of.”

Six-time All-Star Jayson Tatum averaged 33.5 points on 53.5 percent shooting — 47.8 percent from 3-point territory — in the four regular-season games as Boston averaged 125 points per game against third-seeded New York, which advanced by beating Detroit in six games during the first round.

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Minnesota’s Byron Buxton homered and Twin Cities’ DH Ryan Jeffers added two hits and two RBIs to help the visiting Twins defeat the Boston Red Sox 5-4 on Sunday. Buxton hit his seventh home run of the season on the game’s first pitch, and Jeffers had a two-run single with two outs in the seventh that erased a 3-1 deficit.

It remained 3-3 until Harrison Bader doubled against Justin Slaten (0-3) in the eighth inning. Carlos Correa scored on the play to give the Twins a 4-3 lead. Trevor Larnach followed with a single that drove in Bader to make it 5-3.

Boston’s Wilyer Abreu collected three hits, including a solo home run in the eighth inning that cut Minnesota’s lead to 5-4, but Jhoan Duran pitched a scoreless ninth to preserve the one-run lead and earn his fourth save.

Louis Varland got the win (2-3) for pitching one inning of scoreless relief. The victory gave Minnesota two wins in the three-game series.

Boston starter Garrett Crochet exited the mound after five innings (89 pitches). He gave up a run on four hits, walked two and struck out six.

Minnesota’s Chris Paddack also pitched the first five innings. He allowed three runs on five hits, walked two and recorded two strikeouts.

Carlos Narvaez gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second when his single drove in Abreu and Romy Gonzalez, both of whom singled earlier in the inning.

The Red Sox extended their lead to 3-1 in the third. Alex Bregman led off the inning with a walk, moved to third on Abreu’s single and scored on Gonzalez’s sacrifice fly.

The Twins tied the game in the seventh against reliever Garrett Whitlock. Jeffers’ two-run single drove in Bader and Christian Vazquez.

Correa had two hits in the victory. Boston received two hits from Ceddanne Rafaela.

–Field Level Media

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LOUISVILLE – Horse trainer Bill Mott looked like he was gliding on air as he made his way into the infield at Churchill Downs early Saturday evening. Just moments before, his horse Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby.

He displayed a beaming smile while working through the crowd of well-wishers to get to the winner’s circle with jockey Junior Alvarado, Godolphin LLC racing manager Michael Banahan and others connected to the winner of the 151st Run for the Roses.

Godolphin, a global racing giant, celebrated its first Derby win after 26 years of trying. It was the first win for Alvarado in the Derby or any Triple Crown race, and it was the second for Mott. However, he had good reason to treat this like his first.

Six years ago, the Kentucky Derby was in limbo for 22 minutes while stewards reviewed the race. Mott’s Country House finished second to Maximum Security, but he would be named the winner after Maximum Security was deemed to have interfered with other horses. The 2019 decision ranks as one of the most controversial outcomes in the century-and-a-half history of America’s biggest horse race.

That night, Mott called the outcome “bittersweet.” This time around, there was nothing bitter about it.

“This is better,” he told reporters Saturday. “I said afterwards I want to finish first, cross the line first.”

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