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Celtics searching for first playoff road win

May 12, 2008 - 12:50 PM Boston at Cleveland 8:00 pm EDT Eastern Conference semifinals Celtics lead, 2-1

CLEVELAND (Ticker) - After a dominant regular season that included a NBA-best 31-10 road mark, the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs were supposed to be easy for the Boston Celtics. Not so.

The Celtics target their first road win of the playoffs when they continue their best-of-seven game series in in Game Four of the Eastern Conference semifinal round against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Following their impressive 66-16 regular season run, the road to the NBA Finals didn't figure to be all that challenging with a first-round match against the Atlanta Hawks, the lone team to qualify for the 2008 playoffs with a losing record.

However, Boston was the only second-round qualifier to be stretched to seven games, primarily due to its inability to carry any of its dominance on its home court to the road. While the Celtics remain a perfect 6-0 at TD Banknorth Garden, they are 0-3 away from home this postseason.

Saturday's 108-84 loss at Quicken Loans Arena was the Celtics' biggest setback of the season and just the fourth double-digit loss of the campaign. Boston fell behind by 19 points after the first quarter, trailed 43-17 in the second and never mounted a serious threat after halftime.

"In the last two games, Cleveland has come out with more energy to start and gotten off to great starts, and we've talked about that we were lucky we were at home in Game Two," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "(When the other team) gets off to a good start and you're at home, you can come back.

"You do that on the road, it's very difficult to get back in the game and (Saturday) was a great example of that."

One player they likely need to step up is guard Ray Allen, who is averaging just 8.7 points through three games in this series, exactly half of his 17.4 average during the regular season. The eight-time All-Star, who holds the NBA record for most 3-pointers in a season, is just 1-for-11 from the arc in this series.

"I'm not concerned (about Allen)," Rivers said. "He's a great shooter and he'll make shots. We have to work on getting him better shots. We like the matchup but we haven't gotten what we want out of it."

LeBron James' 5-for-16 shooting from the field on Saturday was actually an improvement from his combined 8-for-42 performance over the first two games of the series.

The constant attention he usually draws finally allowed a number of the Cavaliers' role players to thrive in Game Three as Delonte West matched James' 21-point effort while Joe Smith added 17 and Wally Szczerbiak 16.

"It's the playoffs and when you play against tough defensive teams, they are going to try to do whatever they can to take (LeBron) out of the game," Smith said. "He's our leader out there on the floor, so they feel that if they take him out of the game, we are not going to be as effective. I think he did a great job of getting everybody involved and everybody pretty good looks."