Grant Hill scored 13 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter to lead Detroit to a seesaw victory.
Detroit, which got 18 points from Jerry Stackhouse, led by 13 points in the third quarter and then trailed by as many as seven in the fourth before Hill took over.
Boston was led by Antoine Walker’s 22 points and 12 rebounds. The Celtics have lost four straight, while Detroit won for the eighth time in 10 games.
Walter McCarty and Vitaly Potapenko combined for nine points in a 14-0 Boston surge that put the Celtics ahead 61-60 in the third quarter. The last point came after Hill was called for a technical foul.
Detroit led 82-81 with 4 minutes left before Hill clinched the game with back-to-back spinning baseline drives. On the second, he was fouled and converted the three-point play to make it 87-81 with 2:48 left.
Hill put an exclamation point on his personal 7-0 run with a open-court tomahawk dunk 20 seconds later.
Boston’s Rookie of the Year contender, Paul Pierce, missed his second straight game with a sprained right ankle.
