BOSTON — Paul Pierce and Ray Allen found their shooting touch. LeBron James can only hope he left his in Cleveland.
Pierce scored 19 points, Kevin Garnett added 13 with 12 rebounds, and Allen broke out of a seven-quarter scoring drought with 16 points to help the Celtics beat the Cavaliers 89-73 on Thursday night and take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
One game after going 2-for-18 from the field and missing his last six shots, including a layup to tie the game with 8.5 seconds left, James missed his first three tries and finished with 21 points on 6-for-24 shooting.
This time it was contagious: The Cavaliers shot 35.6 percent in the game, hitting just 11.8 percent in the second quarter as Boston turned an eight- point deficit into a nine-point lead.
Game 3 is Saturday night in Cleveland. The Cavaliers will need their crowd to pull them out of their funk because the Celtics are 6-0 in the playoffs in Boston.
James — who was serenaded by the fans with a chant of “Over-rated!” — could benefit most of all. He went 3-for-8 from the field in the first quarter but went 1-for-11 over the second and third when Boston took control.
From early in the second quarter to early in the third, a span of 13:41, Boston outscored Cleveland 36-10.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 19 points for the Cavaliers.
Cleveland reserve Anderson Varejao had 10 rebounds in 32 minutes after forward Ben Wallace went to the locker room just 3:40 into the game due to dizziness. He sat on the bench for the second quarter and took some shots during halftime warm-ups, but did not return to the game.
Pierce (2-for-14 in Game 1) and Allen (0-for-4) snapped out of whatever ailed them. Pierce did it right away, with seven points in the first quarter, but Allen took a little more time. He missed his first four shots, but got the ball back for the first basket of the second half as Boston scored the first 10 points of the third quarter to take a 54-36 lead.
The Associated Press
