The Celtics appeared committed to getting the ball inside against the Warriors early. For most of the first half, they either tried to dump it in to Perkins or drive the lane.

"That was the focus of the game - to try and get the ball inside knowing how small they were and because they were so undermanned," Pierce said.

In the third quarter, they opened it up by hitting three 3-pointers. Rondo's made it 78-65 late in the quarter.

"I thought we played very well in the first half," Warriors coach Don Nelson said.

Rondo scored five points in the 12-0 run that pushed the Celtics ahead 67-55 midway into the third.

Boston was just 1 for 5 from beyond the arc in the opening half, but finished 8 of 19 for the game.

The Celtics led 80-67 after three before Eddie House and Rasheed Wallace nailed consecutive 3s to move them ahead by 16.

Garnett swished a spinning, one-handed 75-foot heave from just above the opposite foul line at the end of the first half, but a replay review confirmed the officials' call on the floor that it came just after the buzzer.

NOTES: Pierce surpassed Isiah Thomas for 48th all-time in scoring. He now has 18,822, nine behind Chet Walker. ... Allen, one of the league's best career free throw shooters with an 89-percent success rate during his 13 seasons, said before the game that he recently offered to help struggling teammate Rondo. Rondo, just a 63 percent shooter in his career, was hitting at only a 25-percent rate coming into Wednesday. "He came to me," Allen said. Rondo went 1 for 4 from the line. ... Raja Bell, acquired from Charlotte on Monday along with Vladimir Radmanovic for Stephen Jackson and Acie Law, played 24 minutes and scored 11 points in his first appearance with the Warriors. He said after the game that he will have surgery on his left wrist - that was heavily taped - on Thursday. "He was going to have surgery anyway so he didn't think that he would injure it worse," Nelson said. "He's going to leave us tomorrow and have surgery."