Vince Ellis

Detroit Free Press

BOSTON – After becoming Isaiah Thomas’ latest victim, Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy pointed the finger at himself.

Thomas scored 24 of his 41 points in the fourth quarter to drag the Boston Celtics to a 113-109 victory Monday night at TD Garden.

The Pistons, who have lost three straight, battled back from an 11-point deficit to take a 93-90 with 6:05 remaining.

That’s when Thomas, who is headed to next month’s All-Star Game, went to work.

He scored 20 of the Celtics’ final 23 points and his three-pointer with 2:28 remaining gave his team a 107-103 lead.

The performance left Van Gundy wishing he would have “run everybody at him.”

“I don’t mean any disrespect to any of their other players,” Van Gundy said. “He’s playing so well right now that he’s just a one-man team. Make somebody else do something and I didn’t do that.

“That’s on me.”

Thomas has scored at least 20 points in his last 32 straight games and it was his fourth 20-point fourth quarter of the season.

“He’s crafty with the basketball,” Tobias Harris said. “He’s a small guy, but he’s very quick and he makes shots. That’s the biggest thing, he makes plays out there. Tonight he was a handful for us.”

Thomas’ night overshadowed Pistons center Andre Drummond’s monster night.

Drummond kept the Pistons in the game with 28 points and 22 rebounds, his fourth 20-20 game of the season and the 13th of his career.

Ish Smith had his best game in weeks with 12 points and two assists on 6-for-7 shooting.

He fueled the Pistons’ comeback, but got gassed and asked to leave the game with 4:28.

Reggie Jackson was 0-for-4 down the stretch, and Al Horford blocked his lay-up attempt with 22.5 seconds left to preserve the Celtics’ two-point lead.

Thomas made four more free throws to cap a perfect 15-for-15 night and the Celtics (30-18) strengthened their grip on the Eastern Conference’s second seed.

Jackson has struggled mightily in clutch situations this season and Van Gundy admitted he considered staying with Smith.

“He was exhausted, now the question is should I have put him back in,” Van Gundy said. “He needed to come out when he came out.

“The fair question is with the way he was playing, should we have put him back in the game, but he had to come out when he did – at least for a couple of minutes.”

Should you have put him back in the game?

“At this point, the answer is easy, the game is over and it didn’t work the way we did it,” Van Gundy said.

Was he OK with Jackson’s shot selection?

“No, no,” Van Gundy said while shaking his head. “I did not. I thought there were plays to be made to other people for better shots.”

Jackson said: “Wasn’t able to make shots. Definitely got to re-watch the plays see what could have done better. Just keep trying to be aggressive. I was just trying to attack and get layups to be honest. I thought I had the mismatch.”

Jae Crowder scored 21 points for the Celtics. Thomas added eight assists

The Pistons (21-27) were able to stay in the game despite a 3-for-27 shooting night from three-point range. Marcus Morris was the worst offender with a 1-for-7 shooting night.

The Celtics ended the first quarter on a 6-0 run to take a 26-25 lead. It was punctuated by a Marcus Smart three-pointer with 2.3 seconds left.

The play was set up when Reggie Bullock forced a jump ball against former Piston Amir Johnson.

The taller Johnson easily won the tip and found Smart, who drained the wing triple.

The Pistons struggled offensively for most of the second quarter. They shot less than 30% and were 0-for-8 from three-point range

And the Celtics surged.

Smart took advantage of the smaller Ish Smith in the post to the tune of six points in the quarter.

Horford, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with a sore groin, nailed a three-pointer with 3.8 seconds left in the first half to give the Celtics a 54-46 lead.

Contact Vince Ellis: vellis@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56. Download our Pistons Xtra app on iTunes or Android!