BOSTON — Jaylen Brown has griped often this season about how he and his Celtics are officiated. His displeasure over certain refereeing decisions has gotten the Boston star ejected from one game and fined $35,000 after another.

Drawing whistles was no problem for him on Monday, however.

Nearly half of the 41 points Brown racked up against the Phoenix Suns came from the charity stripe. He attempted 21 free throws, made 19 and added seven rebounds, six assists, one block and one steal as Boston pulled away late for a 120-112 win at TD Garden.

It was the highest single-game total of free throws and attempts by a Celtics player since Paul Pierce also went 19-for-21 in a 2007 loss to Dallas.

Jayson Tatum and Derrick White each scored 21 points for Boston, with Payton Pritchard adding 19 off the bench. Pritchard also drew a late offensive foul on Suns star Devin Booker to help the Celtics close the game on a 12-1 run.

Booker, who did not play when the Celtics routed the Suns in Phoenix on Feb. 24, nearly matched Brown’s output with 40 points, including 23 straight for his team between the late second and early third quarters. But Phoenix totaled just two points and zero made field goals in the final 4:46 of regulation after taking a four-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.

Brown, who also sat out the teams’ first meeting, scored 18 of the Celtics’ 25 fourth-quarter points.

Boston will host the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday (7 p.m.).

The Celtics fell behind 8-0 during a shaky opening stretch that featured back-to-back White turnovers. Then, they responded with a 12-3 run, with Tatum pulling the strings. He assisted on Boston’s first two baskets — a cutting and-one layup by Neemias Queta and a White 3-pointer off a Queta steal — then scored the next two, finishing at the rim against Oso Ighodaro and draining a second-chance three.

Brown keyed the next Celtics charge by earning a steady succession of trips to the foul line. He shot just 1-for-5 from the field in the first quarter — the lone make coming on a fast-break layup after a Baylor Scheierman steal — but drew five shooting fouls, plus another that was wiped out by a successful Suns challenge.

The Boston star went 9-for-10 from the foul line in the first 12 minutes, setting a new career high for free throws made in any quarter. He was the first NBA player to attempt double-digit free throws in a first quarter since Giannis Antetokounmpo did so on Dec. 4, 2024, and the first Celtic to accomplish that feat since Tony Allen in 2006.

Brown also set up first-half 3-pointers by Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza, Pritchard and Tatum with well-timed passes. Scheierman appeared to tweak his fractured thumb midway through the first quarter — he’s been playing with a splint on the finger since he injured it on Feb. 27 — but he stayed in the game.

The Celtics’ other remaining 2024 championship starter caught fire to begin the second quarter. White drilled 3-pointers on Boston’s first three possessions of the period, then hit his fifth of the game with two minutes to play in the half. He and Brown — who added two triples during a 3-for-4 second quarter — each had 19 points at halftime.

Joe Mazzulla tested out a few smaller lineup combinations late in the first half, occasionally deploying Tatum at the five against a Suns team that was playing without 7-foot-1 starting center Mark Williams (foot).

Boston controlled play for much of the second quarter, but it struggled to keep the clamps on Booker. Phoenix’s five-time All-Star guard scored his team’s final 13 first-half points, drawing two fouls on defensive standout White during that stretch. The Celtics led 65-61 at halftime.

Booker then proceeded to score the Suns’ first 10 points of the second half, including eight in 46 seconds. By the end of that flurry, White and Sam Hauser both were in foul trouble (four apiece) — but the Suns were no closer to catching the Celtics.

Tatum and Brown combined to score 11 points in the first three minutes of the second half, all on layups, dunks or shots within seven feet of the basket. Another layup by Hauser stretched Boston’s lead back to nine, 78-69.

The Suns climbed closer later in the third, twice getting to within three on a Grayson Allen step-through layup and yet another Booker bucket. But Pritchard responded to both with 3-pointers, and the Celtics took a 91-86 edge into the fourth quarter.

The lead reached 10 after Pritchard canned two more threes early in the fourth. The Celtics then had to contend with a surprise scoring surge from Haywood Highsmith, a 29-year-old journeyman who was waived by Brooklyn last month. Highsmith hit two fourth-quarter 3-pointers and drew two fouls, including one that put White one whistle away from expulsion with 6:02 remaining.

Highsmith also forced consecutive Brown turnovers on the defensive end. Ighodaro followed up the second with a dunk that put Phoenix ahead 105-104. Another Suns bench player, Jordan Goodwin, pressured Tatum into a giveaway and hit a corner three to make it 110-106.

Brown missed a 3-pointer that would have pulled the Celtics even, but he poked the ball away from Booker on the ensuing possession and dropped a pass to Tatum for a fast-break layup. After a Suns timeout, a Highsmith miss in traffic and an off-the-mark layup attempt by Tatum, Brown soared in for a putback that put Boston back in front, 112-111.

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