"It's really strange when you play these games on the road, you come home for one game - I guess to unpack and re-pack - and then you go right back out there," Rivers said.

Boston won its seventh straight game to improve to 16-4 on the season, a half-game better than Orlando for the best record in the East.

"Almost there," Rondo said when asked if the Celtics were playing exactly how they hoped. "Not complete, but we're putting (it) together. It's not just one quarter now. We're putting a couple quarters together. We're not quite to 48 minutes but we're almost there."

Boston had seven players in double figures as Kendrick Perkins scored 13, Allen and Eddie House had 11 apiece and Rasheed Wallace finished with 10 points.

Russell Westbrook had 15 points for the Thunder.

The franchises have been linked since the trade of Allen on draft day in 2007 helped put the Celtics on their way to the NBA title. Oklahoma City has been rebuilding around Durant and Jeff Green - their top-5 picks from that draft - ever since.

The Thunder are off to a promising 10-9 start after a miserable 2008-09 season but got another reminder of the work that's left against the Celtics.

Durant entered the game needing only seven points to become the second-youngest player in NBA history to reach 4,000 career points. He got there with a jumper from the right elbow with 6:05 left in the first quarter, but the Celtics had already asserted themselves by then.

Durant's jumper snapped a 10-0 run featuring back-to-back 3-pointers by Pierce that put Boston ahead 19-10, and the Celtics wouldn't trail again.

NOTES: The only player to reach 4,000 points at a younger age than Durant was LeBron James - at 20 years, 318 days. Durant made it at 21 years, 66 days. Kobe Bryant, who had his record broken by James, was 21 years, 216 days when he scored his 4,000th point. ... The Celtics' 31 points in the first quarter were their most in the opening period this season. ... Boston, which has a 13-1 record on other days of the week, moved to 3-3 on Fridays.