BOSTON — The Boston Celtics steamrolled the depleted Milwaukee Bucks in a Sunday matinee at TD Garden, breezing to a 107-79 win to close out a 3-1 homestand.

Jaylen Brown led Boston with 30 points on 12-of-20 shooting and 13 rebounds after missing Friday’s win over Sacramento with knee and hamstring injuries. The Celtics also got 27 points from reported trade candidate Anfernee Simons (10 of 18; 6 of 10 from 3-point range), whose scoring spree late in the first quarter helped Boston overcome an early double-digit deficit.

“That’s kind of been his role, and he’s done a great job buying into it really on both ends of the floor,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said of Simons. “… He’s played his role for us tremendously. He’s just another guy that makes us better.”

Derrick White added 17 points, eight assists and seven rebounds. Neemias Queta had 14 points on 7-of-10 shooting, eight rebounds and four assists.

The Celtics, who entered Sunday tied with the New York Knicks for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, improved to 31-18 with five games remaining before the NBA All-Star break. They’ll head to Texas this week for a back-to-back against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday and Houston Rockets on Wednesday.

Those will be Boston’s final two games before the NBA trade deadline, which is set for 3 p.m. ET on Thursday. Simons, who is playing — and playing well — on a $27.7 million expiring contract, has frequently been named in trade rumors during the deadline lead-up.

The Bucks were playing without the NBA’s highest-profile trade candidate, two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who missed his third straight game with a calf injury. Their 79 points were the fewest by a Celtics opponent since Dec. 31, 2024.

Two days after overwhelming the Kings in a 40-point first quarter, the Celtics were the ones facing an early deficit against Milwaukee. They missed their first four shots as the Bucks shot out to a 12-0 lead.

It took Boston less than a quarter to close that gap, however, thanks to an off-the-bench scoring binge by Simons. The Celtics’ sixth man scored 11 points in the final 2:25 of the opening period, including a 3-pointer that beat the buzzer and tied the game at 26-26.

Two of Simons’ three first-quarter 3s came off Celtics steals — one by White and another by Hugo Gonzalez. White also hit two triples earlier in the quarter — sandwiched around an assist to a driving, dunking Queta — to help jump-start Boston’s sputtering offense.

Aggressive offensive rebounding helped the Celtics control the second quarter. Boston owned a 9-3 edge on the offensive glass at halftime, and Queta and Jordan Walsh both drew fouls while battling under the basket after Celtics misses. Walsh totaled a team-high five offensive rebounds in the win.

“Jordan was big,” Simons said. “I think he, along with JB, kind of set the tone for us. JB set the tone on the defensive glass, and J-Walsh with the offensive glass. And I think that’s what we need from him each and every night. We know he can do it. We know he’s more than capable of bringing that energy and bringing that fight each and every night. So we just expect to see that every single night.”

Up five late in the second, Boston closed the half with consecutive makes by Sam Hauser, White, White and Brown to go ahead 56-42. The final three of those baskets came after defensive rebounds by Brown, whose nine first-half boards tied his season high.

Brown has grabbed at least seven rebounds in seven straight games. He then poured in 10 points in the first three minutes of the second half as his team stretched its lead to 21.

“We always talk about (how) there’s a bunch of different ways you could lead,” Mazzulla said. “I mean, there’s 1,000 ways, and one of them is what you saw tonight. He had nine rebounds in the first half alone, and I thought the 3 at the end of the first half, which got us the situational possessions that we needed, … were big for us. Obviously, what he’s been doing for us on the offensive end, but all the little things that go into it, he knows that that’s how he impacts winning.”

The rest of the third was choppier for the Celtics — the Bucks held them scoreless for nearly five straight minutes, and Brown was hit with a technical foul for arguing with officials — but they found their footing late to take a 78-61 lead into the fourth.

Simons again sparked that surge with a layup, followed by another from Walsh and a drawn foul by Luka Garza. Simons then added a technical free throw after Milwaukee’s Ryan Rollins was T’d up.

Two more Simons buckets early in the fourth quarter made it 84-63, and the Celtics cruised from there. Brown checked back in with 6:32 remaining and scored 10 straight Celtics points, prompting Bucks head coach Doc Rivers to begin emptying his bench.

The Celtics are 7-2 this season when Simons — an established starter with the Portland Trail Blazers before his offseason trade to Boston — scores at least 20 points. They’re 5-0 when he scores 25-plus.

“Obviously, when the whole group just wants you to be yourself and go out there and play a game, and you see success in that, obviously, there’s a confidence,” Simons said. “And there’s a confidence in everybody else, as well.”

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