Jaylen Brown scored 44 points as NBA champions the Boston Celtics responded to consecutive defeats with a 142-105 victory over the Indiana Pacers.

Jayson Tatum contributed 22 points and Payton Pritchard added a further 18 as Boston recorded their biggest points total of the season.

The win kept the Celtics in touch with Eastern Conference leaders the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cleveland improved their league-best record to 27 wins in 31 games – four more than the Celtics – with a 149-135 victory over the Denver Nuggets among eight games to take place on Friday.

Donovan Mitchell posted 33 points as six Cavaliers players reached double figures in the team’s sixth consecutive victory, achieved despite NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic’s triple-double of 27 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists for Denver.

Elsewhere, Anthony Edwards made a three-pointer with 23.2 seconds left to give the Minnesota Timberwolves a 113-112 win over hosts the Houston Rockets, who led by 16 points with less than five minutes to play.

Jalen Brunson scored 26 points as the New York Knicks extended their winning streak to six games with a 108-85 victory over the Magic in Orlando, while Victor Wembanyama produced 19 points and seven rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs beat the Brooklyn Nets 96-87 in Brooklyn.

The Los Angeles Clippers won 102-92 against the Golden State Warriors, who were without the injured Stephen Curry.

Kyrie Irving’s 20 points helped the Dallas Mavericks beat the Phoenix Suns 98-89, and the Memphis Grizzlies recorded an eighth win in 10 by beating the New Orleans Pelicans 132-124.

The Sacramento Kings fired coach Mike Brown on Friday, less than halfway into his third season in charge, following Thursday’s 114-113 loss to the Detroit Pistons.

That defeat was Sacramento’s fifth-in-a-row – and 18th in 31 games this season – and left the Kings in 12th place in the 15-team Western Conference.

Brown, 54, was voted NBA Coach of the Year after guiding the Kings to the Western Conference play-offs in his first year in 2022-23, and he signed a three-year contract extension worth a reported $30m (£23.8m) in July.

Assistant Doug Christie will take over as interim coach.

Also on Friday, the NBA announced it had fined the Philadelphia 76ers player Joel Embiid $75,000 (£60,000) for making obscene gestures toward the Boston Celtics’ home crowd during their game on Christmas Day.

Embiid was ejected from his team’s 111-106 win against the San Antonio Spurs after confronting a referee on Tuesday.