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 Boston 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.
“I’m a little shocked that he’s 8-for-42, but this is what we work on. We work on trying to contain him,” said Pierce, who was 2-for-14 in Game 1.
Game 3 is Saturday night in Cleveland.
“Being down 0-2, that’s a tough hole to dig yourself out of. But if we want to win the series we’ve got to do it,” James said, noting the Cavaliers lost the first two games to Detroit in last year’s playoffs but won four straight to reach the NBA finals.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 19 points for the Cavaliers, and 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.
Wallace, who attributed the problem to allergies, sat on the bench for the second quarter and warmed up after halftime but did not return to the game.
