The Boston Celtics beat the Atlanta Hawks 105-95 at TD Garden on Sunday to extend their winning streak to eight games.

Jason Tatum of the Celtics and Trae Young of the Hawks, who are staters for Team Kevin in the coming NBA All-Star Game, dominated the floor with tit-for-tat individual performance.

Tatum went 13-27 in field goals (FGs), 4-10 in 3-pointers and 8-9 in free throws to drop 38 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, one steal and two blocks. He scored 16 points in the third quarter alone, leading his team to rally with a 42-23 drive.

Young was not as efficient as Tatum as he missed 17 FG attempts, including eight triples. But Young still got a double-double of 30 points and 10 assists. He had 13 points in Q1, which was the only quarter the Hawks led 28-17.

"We played really good defense until that third quarter," Young said. "We've just got to stay solid throughout the four quarters and we've got to do a little bit better offensively, especially down the stretch."

The Celtics drained five shots from downtown and 11 from the free-throw line in Q3. Jaylen Brown joined Tatum to contribute double-digit points of 11 in this quarter. Al Horford added another two 3-pointers.

"I thought in the third quarter, we got distracted by the officiating. They got into the penalty early and they had a 42-point quarter," Hawks head coach Nate McMillan said. "I thought that was the difference in the game. We just were not able to recover from that."

Slowly but surely, the Celtics (33-25) were crawling out of the pit they fell into at the beginning of the season. However, they haven't left the seventh Toronto Raptors (31-24) too far behind. Neither are they trailing the fifth Philadelphia 76ers (34-22) by too much.

The Hawks, who are 10th in the Eastern Conference with a 26-30 record, are competing with the Brooklyn Nets (29-27) and Charlotte Hornets (29-29) for a top 8 spot. Meanwhile, the Hawks must be watching out for the Washington Wizards (25-30) and New York Knicks (25-32).

Haliburton is more solid, but Edwards more promising

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Indiana Pacers 129-120 at Gainbridge FieldHouse on Sunday to end their two-game losing streak.

As the best player of the Timberwolves, Karl-Anthony Towns only played a bit more than 22 minutes on Sunday due to foul trouble, which partly explained why he only had 15 points. But Towns grabbed 13 rebounds, including five on the offensive glass.

Anthony Edwards shouldered the role Towns missed for the team by shooting at 13-25 in FGs and 7-13 in 3-pointers to get 37 points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals. He had 11 and 15 points in Q2 and Q3, respectively, ensuring that the Timberwolves entered the last quarter with a four-point lead (102-98).

Tyrese Haliburton of the Pacers was drafted in the same year with Edwards (first-overall pick), but with the 12th pick. He didn't share Edwards' athleticism or explosive scoring ability, but Haliburton is a much more mature orchestrator than Edwards. Despite the loss on Sunday, he got a double-double of 22 points and 16 assists while shooting at 50 percent in both FGs (7-14) and 3-pointers (6-12).

"Against a team that had all their guys and is playing very well and is very talented we did some good things to hang around and give ourselves a chance in the fourth," Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said. "There's some very positive things and some things that obviously need work. We're just running low on bodies now."

The Pacers remained 13th in the Easter with a 19-39 record in the East. When the season ends, their record may not be bad enough to earn the first-overall pick for this year's draft, but the team should be able to complete rebuilding more smoothly, like they did multiple times in the past decade.