Boston coach Doc Rivers put his team through a two-hour workout yesterday. The focus? “Staying focused,” he said.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

WALTHAM, Mass. — With championship-driven veterans like Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Sam Cassell leading his club, Celtics coach Doc Rivers doesn’t worry about the rest of his players losing focus.

But to allay any concern he had about his team being locked into Game Three of its first-round series against the Hawks tonight in Atlanta, Rivers fired three rounds of motivational ammo at practice yesterday.

Toronto 108, Orlando 94. Washington 108, Cleveland 72. Houston 94, Utah 92.

The Magic, Cavaliers and Jazz had won the first two games of their series —the Jazz on the road —and lost Game Three. Rivers does not want the Celtics to suffer a similar fate tonight. After a day off on Thursday, he put his team through a two-hour workout yesterday. The focus?

“Staying focused,” he said, drawing a laugh from the media crowd. “That was some of it, you know, because I thought it was interesting yesterday that all the teams that were up 2-0 lost. And so we told them that.”

Orlando and Cleveland lost on the road, a warning sign for the Celtics, even though they dominated the Hawks in the first two games of this series and won all three encounters during the regular season.

“We want to try to take care of business on the road,” Pierce said.

“Like LeBron [James] said after the game, ‘We came out and I just thought our focus was a little off. Not a lot off, just a little.’ That resulted in a 30-point loss,” said River, “and so we got to have great focus coming in every night, and especially when you’re up, 2-0, and you get a lot of pats on the back, it’s easy to take your eyes off what you should be doing. And so I thought our focus was pretty good in practice.”

The Celtics worked on their shooting in light of their 41.7-percent effort from the field in Game Two on Wednesday night.

“We had good shots,” Rivers said. “I didn’t mind the shots. I thought we took too many jump shots, but if you look at the film, the jump shots were wide open.”

The Celtics are averaging 100 points in the playoffs, a figure Rivers said “we would take for the entire series, and every series we can get in to.”

He would also take fewer fouls. Boston committed 33 fouls in Game Two and sent the Hawks to the free-throw line 40 times. The Hawks made 31.

“I think we’re fouling too much right now. We’ve got to move our feet a little bit better defensively. It gives you an answer on offense, and that slows your offense down. If they’re shooting free throws every single time down, there are no fast breaks. There is no early offense because you’re taking it out. Now you’re allowing them to set their defense. That’s what we’re trying to do. I thought in Game Two that had a big effect on our offense. I didn’t like that. Other than that, I have no gripes.”

Rivers, a star point guard for the Hawks 20 years ago, declined to speculate on what the atmosphere will be like tonight in Atlanta. Pierce expects the Hawks crowd “to be into it, and they’re going to be more confident in their home arena, but this team is ready. We’re ready.”

Rivers did reminisce for a moment about the Eastern Conference semifinal series the Hawks and Celtics played in the 1986 and 1988.

“If it’s like when we played the Celtics; I expect a lot of Celtics fans there because that’s how it was. That three-year period (1986, 1987, 1988) when we were in Atlanta, it was phenomenal. We had big crowds. They were very supportive. But when the Celtics came, there still was green there, and that always upset us, until later when we got into the seven-game series with them. We saw the green disappearing in the crowd, and I thought that was great.”

Rivers hasn’t spent a lot of time talking to his young players about going on the road in the playoffs.

“They got Kevin and P.J. [Brown] and Sam [Cassell]. That’s all they do is talk. They tell them everything. They really do. We obviously talk about it, but I don’t go overboard about it. There’s not a lot I can do. They’re going to hear from their teammates. They’re going to hear from all you guys [media]. At the end of the day they have to deal with it.”

Next Game

Tonight

At Atlanta,

8 p.m.

mszostak@projo.com