Indiana has dominated Boston in recent times, and Celtics coach Doc Rivers convinced his players that it was time to take a stand.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, January 27, 2005

BY CAROLYN THORNTON
Journal Sports Writer

BOSTON -- Doc Rivers' pre-game pep talk to the Boston Celtics last night had less to do with X's and O's and more to do with taking a stand against a team that was starting to think that a meeting with the Celts meant it could start penciling in another 'W.'

The Indiana Pacers swept Boston last year, Rivers reminded his team. They swept Boston in the playoffs, and had already beaten the Celts twice this year.

"At some point you have to beat this team," Rivers told his players. "At times you have to become a not-tonight team. You have to decide: you're not going to beat us tonight if you're better than us or not."

With that, Boston -- back at the FleetCenter after finally snapping a nine-game losing streak on the road with Tuesday's 97-92 win over the expansion Bobcats -- survived a late run by the Pacers and emerged with a 100-86 victory at the FleetCenter.

"We feel like coming into this year we wanted to play with more of a sense of pride at home regardless of who we're playing," said Celts captain Paul Pierce, who led his team with 23 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists. "We've just got to protect our home court. If we have any chance of going anywhere in the playoffs, this has got to be an area where teams can't come in here and feel like they're comfortable. Regardless if it was Indiana tonight, we needed this win."

Boston dropped the first two meetings of the season to the Pacers, falling 100-94 at home on Nov. 5 and then suffering a 106-96 setback at Indiana on Nov. 23.

The second defeat was particularly painful for the Celtics considering the Pacers' roster was depleted thanks to the suspensions handed down to Ron Artest, Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson and Anthony Johnson for their part in the brawl after Indiana's game at Detroit two nights earlier.

While Artest is suspended for the rest of the season, O'Neal, Johnson and Jackson were all back in the lineup last night. But Indiana was still not at full strength. Jamaal Tinsley was sidelined with a sinus flu and Johnson was suffering from a mild case of pneumonia.

The Pacers still had plenty of weapons to make things interesting, though, and trailed Boston by just one, 49-48, at halftime.

They were down by six after two Raef LaFrentz free throws put the Celtics up, 60-54, at 8:47 of the third quarter. Indiana then ran off six unanswered points and tied the score on a 17-footer by Jermaine O'Neal.

But Boston followed with a 16-6 run that included a nice dunk off the break by Tony Allen and eight points from LaFrentz.

After the Celtics took an 84-73 lead on a layup by Ricky Davis at 8:34 of the fourth, the Pacers made one more serious challenge, running off eight straight points.

But after former Providence College star Austin Croshere sank his second trey to make it 84-81, Gary Payton emerged from a Boston timeout and sank a 3-pointer himself.

Then after a miss by Miller, Davis sank a 17-footer, as the Celts went on to outscore the visitors, 16-5, down the stretch.

With last night's win, Boston moved into sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division. The last time the Celtics held the top spot by themselves after 42 games was at the end of the 1990-91 season.

"It's a start," said Pierce. "It's good to be on top of the division, which puts us in the three seed, but we've still got a long ways to go. We want to not really sit on this and be satisfied with it. Even though we're in first place, we haven't really been playing like a first-place team, so it's just something we can build on."