BOSTON — After a record-setting seven overtimes in the first six games, the defending NBA champion Celtics made an early night of it with a dominating stretch in the second.
That’s second quarter, not second overtime.
Ray Allen followed his 51-point Game 6 performance with 23 on Saturday night, Paul Pierce added 20 and Boston pulled away from Chicago just before the half to finish off the Bulls 109-99 — a rare regulation victory in what might have been the best first-round playoff series in league history.
“I don’t see great. I just see hard,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers, whose team will play the Magic in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday. “For a coach, it’s just: Win the series.”
Ben Gordon scored 33 points and Kirk Hinrich scored 14 of his 16 in the fourth quarter to help Chicago cut its deficit to three points — thanks in part to a bizarre scoring change that added a point to the Bulls’ score two hours after a first-half 3-pointer was mistakenly ruled a 2.
Boston made all 11 of its free throws in the last two minutes to hold on, and the seventh-seeded Bulls return to Chicago knowing they took the defending champs to the limit — and quite often beyond. The four overtime games set a record for a series, and the seven overtimes total were the most any team ever played in an entire playoff — and it’s just the first round.
“It was a long, grueling series. I thought this was one of the most mentally tough series I’ve ever been in,” Pierce said. “Thank goodness we were battle-tested and we were able to pull this out.”
Boston’s Kendrick Perkins had 13 rebounds, Rajon Rondo had 11 assists and Eddie House scored 16 points — going 5-for-5 from the floor, including four 3-pointers.
Joakim Noah grabbed 15 rebounds for Chicago.
Celtics forward Glen “Big Baby” Davis, who scored 15 points as the sub for injured star Kevin Garnett, said he was glad to finish this one in regulation.
“Oh, my God. Overtime after overtime after overtime,” Davis said. “We did what we had to do to get the job done.”
After three consecutive overtime games, the series went from Odyssey to oddity when an unusual scoring correction helped the Bulls cut their deficit to three points in the fourth quarter.
With 5:44 left in the game, the public address announcer said that because of a “technical error” Gordon was credited with a 2-pointer instead of a 3-pointer, apparently on his basket with 8:32 left in the first quarter. Officials can use video replay to check whether a shot is from beyond the arc or not, but it is supposed to come at the first break after the basket — not three quarters later.
