Maine Celtics rally in Indiana to win eighth straight game

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The Maine Celtics rallied in the fourth quarter to beat the Indiana Mad Ants 104-97 and win their eighth consecutive game on Thursday.

Maine (14-9) ties the franchise's longest winning streak of eight games, previously set during the 2014-15 season. Maine remains undefeated in the month of February and as of Thursday afternoon is fifth in the Eastern Conference Standings.

JD Davison led Maine with 26 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals. Jay Scrubb and Tristan Enaruna led Maine's bench that outscored the Mad Ants 49-30. Scrubb scored 19 points and Enaruna added 15 points and 5 rebounds. Defensively, Hason Ward posted four blocked shots and James Banks III denied three more as Maine held their opponent to less than 100 points for the fifth time in the last eight games.

Indiana (13-8) was led by 25 points from Quenton Jackson. Enrique Freeman added 18 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks and RayJ Dennis contributed 16 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists, and 3 steals. 

Coming out of the NBA All-Star Break, both teams began Thursday's game at full strength with all Two-Way Players available. Maine had no players on the injury report. Looking to build on the league's longest active winning streak, Maine jumped out to a 8-2 lead in Indiana after Davison found James Banks III for the alley-oop off the pick and roll. After the Mad Ants scored two, Davison scored seven consecutive points to give the Celtics a 15-4 advantage at the first media timeout, their largest lead of the first half. Indiana answered with a 15-2 run and a made three-pointer by Dakota Mathias with 34.3 seconds left in the quarter returned the lead to the Mad Ants, 23-22. It was their first lead since it was 2-0 and Indiana held a narrow 26-25 lead to start the second quarter. Davison and Drew Peterson scored 15 of Maine's 26 first quarter points.

Deadlocked for much of the second quarter, a made three by Indiana's Johnny Furphy tied the game at 35 apiece. Davison scored six of his 13 first half points in the second, but the Mad Ants would finish the first half with the momentum. After forcing a turnover on defense, Indiana's Quenton Jackson threw down a dunk in transition plus the foul to give the Mad Ants their largest lead of the first half, 54-47 with 1:07 remaining. Jackson had 13 points and RayJ Dennis added 10 first half points to lead Indiana to a 54-49 halftime advantage. While the Celtics were strong on the defensive end with seven blocked shots, Maine shot just 3-14 (21.4%) from distance while the Mad Ants were 8-16 (50%) from three in the first half. Maine's Drew Peterson left the game late in the second quarter with an ankle injury and would not return in the second half. 

Davison picked up right where he left off in the second half. With Maine trailing by six, the Celtics Two-Way Player scored on back-to-back layups to pull back within two, 59-57. The Mad Ants quickly responded, and a three-point play by Furphy with 7:12 to go in the third quarter put Indiana back up by seven. Dennis buried a three-pointer at the 4:40 mark to put Indiana in front by 11, their largest lead of the game at that point. Tristana Enaruna knocked down his second three-pointer in the quarter with less than a minute to play to pull Maine back within six. Enaruna led Maine with 11 third quarter points as they trailed 78-72 at the end of the third. 

With less than ten minutes to go in the game, Maine began to claw their way back into the game. Jay Scrubb drilled a step back triple with 9:18 to go to pull the Celtics within two. Scrubb followed that up with a tough shot in the paint to tie the game at 80 with 8:32 left on the clock. On the next play, an Anton Watson dunk capped off a 10-0 run for the Celtics as Maine claimed their first lead of the second half, 82-80. With the Celtics maintaining a narrow 92-91 lead, Scrubb connected on a big shot from beyond the arc to put Maine up four with 2:04 to play. Scrubb scored 12 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter alone. Maine added three more on the next possession after Davison bulldozed through the lane for the old fashioned, three-point play to put the Celtics up 98-91 with less than two minutes to play. Indiana's Freeman scored on a follow-up with 37 seconds remaining to make it a one possession game, 100-97. Looking to put the game on ice, Maine went to Davison. The third-year guard buried a clutch midrange jump shot to give Maine a five-point cushion with 15.3 seconds remaining. Maine didn't allow the Mad Ants to score again and secured their eighth consecutive victory with a 104-97 win. The Celtics outscored Indiana 32-19 in the final quarter. 

Maine shot 38-79 (48.1%) from the field and 8-26 (30.8%) from three. 26 attempts from beyond the arc is a new season-low for the Celtics. Indiana shot just 32-83 (38.6%) from the floor and 14-33 (42.4%) from three. Maine outrebounded Indiana 50-42, improving to 13-2 this season when the Celtics outrebound their opponents. Maine also scored 56 points in the paint compared to just 32 for the Mad Ants on Thursday. The Celtics also posted one of their best performances of the season from the free throw line, connecting on 12-of-14 (85.7%) shots from the charity stripe. 

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Maine's JD Davison was selected as the Player of the Game after tallying a game-high 26 points, along with 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. 

THE ROAD AHEAD: This was the first game in a nine-game road trip for the Maine Celtics. Next up, Maine will travel to Memphis to battle the hustle on February 23 at 6:00 p.m. The game will broadcast live here.