Tatum scores 36 points, the Celtics pour it on in 2nd half to beat the Nets 139-114

NEW YORK (AP) — Jayson Tatum had 36 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds, Jaylen Brown added 24 points and 12 rebounds and the Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets 139-114 on Wednesday night.

Payton Pritchard had 23 points, eight assists and six rebounds for the Celtics, who quickly and emphatically bounced back with their highest points total of the season after a surprising 117-116 home loss to Atlanta on Tuesday night.

Boston fell into a 13-point hole in the first quarter of this one before the NBA champions snapped themselves back into top form and turned the game into a rout with a 74-point second half.

Ziaire Williams scored a season-high 23 points for the Nets.

Celtics: The home loss to an Atlanta team that played without star guard Trae Young was puzzling. But when the Celtics play like they did in the third quarter, when they rang up 38 points and were 7 for 11 behind the arc, nights like those will be rare.

Nets: The Nets should like what they're seeing from Williams, who made his second straight start with Ben Simmons (left calf tightness) and Dorian Finney-Smith (sprained left ankle) sidelined. They added the No. 10 pick in the 2021 draft after he spent his first three seasons in Memphis.

Derrick White, who scored a season-high 31 points Tuesday, was in foul trouble and scoreless in the first half Wednesday. He finally got on the board with a 3-pointer early in the third quarter, quickly sparking the Celtics to a 13-2 spurt that pushed a four-point lead to 85-70.

The Celtics have won 12 of the last 13 meetings overall against the Nets and seven straight in Brooklyn, where they haven't lost since the 2020-21 season.

The Celtics are off until hosting Toronto on Saturday night. The Nets head across town to visit the Knicks on Friday and Sunday night.

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Brooklyn Nets' Cam Thomas shoots while Boston Celtics' Payton Pritchard defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Brooklyn Nets' Dennis Schroder celebrates after scoring a three-point basket in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Boston Celtics' Jrue Holiday grabs a rebound in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown reacts after scoring a three-point basket in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Boston Celtics' Jayson Tatum reacts after scoring a three-point basket in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan but said it could be commuted to life if she reimburses some $11 billion, or three-fourths of what she defrauded in the country’s largest financial crime.

The scale of her fraud shocked the nation with analysts raising questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred. It has also dampened Vietnam’s economic outlook and made foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as a home for businesses pivoting their supply chains away from China.

Lan, 67, was convicted in April of embezzlement and bribery amounting to $12.5 billion, equivalent to 3% of the country’s GDP. As chairperson of the Van Thinh Phat real estate firm, the court said she illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that cost the bank $27 billion in losses.

A higher court in Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday rejected her appeal of the conviction but said that her death sentence could be commuted to life if she reimburses three-fourth of the losses, working out to around $11 billion, state media reported.

Her lawyers argued that she had repaid the money but the court disagreed since there were legal issues with some of the seized properties and prosecuting agencies couldn't assess their value, VN Express reported.

Lan's lawyers also noted several mitigating circumstances — she had admitted guilt, showed remorse and had paid back part of the amount.

“I feel pained due to the waste of national resources,” she said last week, according to state media.

But the court said her violations had negatively impacted banking, caused public disorder and eroded people’s trust, VN Express said.

Under Vietnamese law, death sentences aren't immediately carried out and there is an extended legal process, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. He added that Lan would seek another review of the case or a presidential pardon to reduce her sentence.

“Moreover, if she repays at least three-quarters of the misappropriated funds, the court may consider commuting her sentence to life imprisonment,” he said.

Her arrest was among the most high-profile in an anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that intensified after 2022. The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.

Lan, 67, and her family had set up the Van Thing Phat company in 1992, after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favor of a more market-oriented approach open to foreigners. The company grew into one of Vietnam’s richest real estate firms, with luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers.

This made her a key player in the country’s financial industry. She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB bank with two other lenders in coordination with Vietnam’s central bank. The court said that she used this to tap SCB for cash and, according to government documents, owned more than 90% of the bank while approving thousands of loans to “ghost companies.”

These loans, according to state media, found their way to her and she bribed officials to cover her tracks.

The scale of the crime meant the case was split into two trials, and Lan was sentenced to another life sentence in October. At that trial, she was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by issuing bonds illegally through four companies, state media reported.

She was also found guilty of siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and for using companies controlled by her to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.

Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences in the past decade and executed more than 400 prisoners. It is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes but is typically applied for cases of murder and drug trafficking.

Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, second left, attends trial in an appeal she filed against her death sentence in a financial fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Tran Quynh/VNExpress via AP)

Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan attends trial in an appeal she filed against her death sentence in a financial fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Tran Quynh/VNExpress via AP)