Celtics’ raging run crushes spurs in a jaw-dropping final game before the all-star break!

Boston, MA – Feb. 12 – Jayson Tatum #0 and Al Horford #42 of the Boston Celtics celebrate during the first half of the NBA game against the San Antonio Spurs at the TD Garden. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)

Thirty-two points from Jayson Tatum. Twenty-nine from Kristaps Porzingis. A near triple-double from Derrick White. And, most importantly for the Celtics, no pre-All-Star letdown in their final game before an eight-day break.

Boston defeated the San Antonio Spurs 116-103 on Wednesday night at TD Garden — the seventh win in eight games for Joe Mazzulla’s squad.

Tatum turned in his third straight 30-point performance, adding 14 rebounds and seven assists. Porzingis registered his second-highest point total of the season, and White finished with 19 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, offsetting the pair’s 11 collective turnovers.

The Celtics were playing without Jaylen Brown (knee) and Jrue Holiday (shoulder), who both sat out with injuries. They were missing multiple starters in each of their last three games and won all three by double digits.

Boston now is off until Thursday, Feb. 20, when it visits Philadelphia.

“You know the break is coming,” said Tatum, who will be one of three Celtics representatives at All-Star weekend along with Brown and Rising Stars participant JD Davison. “You want to go into the break feeling well and playing some good basketball, and I would say over the last 10 games or so, we’ve done that.”

San Antonio rallied in the second half, cutting a 24-point Celtics lead to eight, but Boston pulled away late. Trade-deadline pickup De’Aaron Fox led the Spurs with 23 points, with second-year superstar Victor Wembanyama adding 17 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks.

The Celtics picked their spots against the impossibly rangy Wembanyama, who entered Wednesday with 75 more blocks than any other NBA player (and got another one early on an Al Horford layup attempt). But they weren’t afraid to attack the 7-foot-3 phenom when the situation called for it.

Tatum drove straight past Wembanyama for a thunderous first-quarter dunk. One possession later, Porzingis beat the big man at the rim after a nifty triple-move post-up. The Celtics center looked pleased with himself for besting the French sensation, smiling as he jogged back up the court.

“The impact that he has on the defensive end, just with his length and his wingspan is, like, historic,” Porzingis said. “We haven’t seen this, no? … He’s just a special player. That’s maybe partially how people feel around me, but with him, it’s a different level. Special, special player.”

Porzingis went 3-for-3 from the field in the first quarter, but Tatum drove the Celtics’ scoring attack, scoring 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting as Boston built a 37-19 lead. It was an early-game return to form for the six-time All-Star, who was quiet in the first half of Boston’s previous two games before exploding in the third quarter (19 points against New York, 20 against Miami).

Up 16-15 six minutes in, the Celtics closed the opening frame with a 21-4 run capped by three consecutive 3-pointers. Tatum scored one of those and assisted on the two others, including a Horford buzzer-beater that put Boston ahead by 18. Tatum, Horford and White all made multiple threes in the first quarter, while the Spurs shot 1-for-11 from deep as a team.

The Celtics stretched their lead to 24 in the second quarter, getting another 16 points from Tatum and Porzingis along with the first contributions of Torrey Craig’s Boston tenure.

Craig, signed last week after being waived by Chicago, made his Celtics debut Wednesday and flashed his potential as a 3-and-D wing. He hit two threes in the second quarter, assisted on another by Tatum and blocked a shot by Spurs rookie Stephon Castle across his nine minutes of action.

“It was crazy,” Craig said. “The atmosphere, the crowd, the fans. It’s just a joy to play in front of a crowd like that. And yeah, man, I’m just glad I made my debut in the Garden. I’m glad I hit my first shot.”

Durability will be an important variable for Craig, who hadn’t played since Dec. 30 because of an ankle sprain and also missed time with knee and ankle injuries last season. But if he can stay healthy, the 34-year-old should add experience and perimeter shooting ability to the back half of Boston’s bench, which has lacked both this season.

The Celtics took a 66-47 lead into halftime, with Tatum, Porzingis and White combining for more first-half points (49) than the entire Spurs roster.

Sloppiness then set in for the Celtics. Four turnovers in five minutes, coupled with a sudden cold streak, allowed San Antonio to cut its deficit to 10 points multiple times in the third quarter. Porzingis gave Boston some breathing room with a 3-pointer that halted an 8-0 Spurs run, and Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet and Porzingis later scored at the rim on consecutive Celtics possessions, all with Wembanyama off the court.

Pritchard and Kornet combined for six offensive rebounds in the game and finished as a plus-12 and plus-10, respectively.

Tatum was on the verge of a triple-double by the end of the third quarter (28-11-7) but missed three late free throws that would have padded Boston’s lead. The Celtics entered the fourth with a 93-81 advantage, which the Spurs quickly cut to single digits.

But Boston rebuffed that rally. After two Castle free throws made it an eight-point game, Porzingis and Pritchard buried back-to-back threes. Pritchard also hit one late in the third quarter after starting 0-for-7 from deep (and going 1-for-8 against Miami on Monday). Another three by Sam Hauser, who’d missed his first five attempts, gave the Celtics a 16-point lead with 6:42 remaining.

Porzingis set up Hauser’s triple by flipping a pass over his right shoulder while being doubled by Wembanyama and Fox. The ball found Horford in the paint, who zipped it out to an open Hauser. San Antonio never recovered, and Boston was able to empty its bench in the final minutes.

After hovering just above .500 from mid-December through late January, the Celtics head into the All-Star break playing some of their best basketball of the season. The defending champions are 8-2 in their last 10 games. The lone blemishes: an ugly home loss to Dallas that Porzingis believed they “should have won” and a last-second defeat against Houston in which role player Dillon Brooks made 10 threes and Boston had multiple defensive breakdowns in the final minutes.

“We finished heading into the break really well,” Porzingis said. “I think we’re still experiencing a little bit, but not as much anymore, that people are going off against us, having career highs in threes or whatever. So I think the luck is starting to turn our way, and that’s it. We’ve just got to stay with it, and I think, as I said before, I want to speak it into existence that we’re going to peak at the right moment and we’re going to hit our stride and just look like a team that’s going to win it all again.”