The triple take: Celtics 143, Spurs 140 (OT)

If the Spurs wind up missing the NBA playoffs for a second consecutive season, Friday will be a night they remember.

Despite leading by 32 points in the second quarter, 29 at half and 13 heading into the fourth quarter, the Spurs fell in Boston 143-140 in overtime.

The Spurs gave up 60 points to Jayson Tatum, which feels like a typo but is not.

It was the most amount points ever scored by a Boston player, matching the franchise record set by Larry Bird.

Which is decent company.

DeMar DeRozan scored 30 points, Dejounte Murray had 20 of his 24 before halftime and Lonnie Walker IV ended with 24 off the bench, but the Spurs could not hold on to their biggest halftime lead of the season.

After taking a 77-48 lead, the Spurs allowed Boston to win the second half 80-51 and force OT.

Having led by 29 points at intermission, the Spurs were outscored 95-48 in the second half and OT.

The Celtics won despite leading for only 52 seconds of regulation.

When Tatum knocked down a 3-pointer with 37.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter, it put Boston ahead 127-126.

It was the Celtics’ first lead since 5-4 in the first quarter.

The teams went back and forth in OT. After Jaylen Brown capped the worst shooting night of his career (5 of 24) with a go-ahead 3-pointer with 16.7 to play, the Spurs’ Rudy Gay turned the ball over on the ensuing lob to the rim.

It resulted in the hardest-luck loss for the Spurs of the season.

Here are three takeaways from Friday’s overtime heartbreaker:

This one is going to sting

This is the kind of loss the Spurs have to hope does not beat them twice.

Next week is something of a bear, with five games in seven nights and none of them exactly a cakewalk.

The Spurs open the week Sunday against Philadelphia — the second-best team in the Eastern Conference — before traveling to Utah for a pair of games against the NBA-leading Jazz.

In a playoff/play-in race, every game counts.

It is easy to see Friday’s near-miss becoming a four-game losing streak or worse, which is killer at this point in the season.

It was a tale of two halves Charles Dickens would find ridiculous

Huge early leads are hard to hold in the NBA. Nevertheless, the Spurs pulled off a dandy in letting their 77-48 deficit slip away.

After matching a season best with 77 points in the first half and shooting 71.4 percent from the field, the Spurs were outscored by 49 points in the third and fourth quarters.

The Spurs made only 38 percent of their field goals after halftime, a brutal regression to the mean.

No single player personified the Spurs’ reversal of fortune more than Dejounte Murray.

The Spurs point guard began the game with 20 points in the first half, going 9 of 9 from the field.

Murray ended with 24 points, and went 1 of 9 in the second half.

There are parts of the challenge rule that are unfortunate

The Spurs were ahead by a point after Walker’s jumper with 31.5 seconds to go in OT.

Boston called timeout, and the ensuing inbounds play — a lob to Robert Williams at the rim — was blown up by a textbook basketball play from Jakob Poeltl.

Officials ruled Poeltl fouled Williams on the pass, a call almost immediately reversed when the Spurs challenged.

Had the whistle not blown in the first place, the ball would have clearly wound up in the hands of one of three Spurs near the rim.

Because the ball was technically loose when the undeserved foul against Poeltl was called, however, the play resulted in a jump ball at midcourt.

The Celtics won the tip, and Jaylen Brown made a corner 3-pointer with 16.7 seconds left to put Boston ahead by two.

In the end, the Spurs won the challenge but would have been better off losing it.

Instead of a 3-pointer, it would have been Williams shooting a pair of free throws.

The most the Celtics could have mustered on the possession was two points, and given Williams’ 64-percent career free-throw percentage, they might not have even gotten that.

Tatum is not Larry Bird, but …

It was cute in the first quarter, when Tatum scored 14 of Boston’s paltry 16 points in the opening frame.

The Spurs lead by 23 at that point, so any statistical analysis seemed mute.

Tatum kept scoring — and scoring and scoring — on the Spurs. More importantly, his Boston teammates began catching up.

Tatum’s 60 points were the second-most scored against the Spurs, narrowly missing the 61 points James Harden put up for Houston in March 2019.

It also surpassed Tatum’s career high of 53, set earlier this month against Minnesota.

Tatum scored 31 of his point in the fourth quarter and overtime, which more or less decided the game.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN