Celtics go fourth, prosper

At least the fourth quarter appears to be their domain again.

Granted, the Celtics [team stats] are far from a full house right now. Witness the sight of Paul Pierce [stats] in street clothes.

But as evidenced by last night’s 107-102 win over Miami - coming on the heels of Monday’s fourth quarter lock-down in Washington - the Celtics are again finishing better than they start.

Ray Allen and Eddie House, two Celtics who have seen better seasons, combined for 18 points over the last 12 minutes, including a trey each.

Overall Allen scored 23 points and House brought 16 off the bench. Rajon Rondo [stats] polished off the night with a 22-point, 14-assist double-double.

But for Doc Rivers the most encouraging number was easily the 41.7 percent shot by Miami in the fourth, as well as the Heat’s 43.9 percent second half number, a striking shift from the team that shot 62.5 percent in the first half.

“Two games in a row of great fourth-quarter ‘D,’ ” Rivers said. “But it had to get better. What were they shooting, 60-whatever-percent in the first half? That’s pretty high. But it’s funny, I told them at halftime, and this sounds crazy, I thought we were playing hard defensively.

“But Dwyane Wade controlled the first half.”

Unfortunately for Miami, Wade’s 30-point, 13-assist performance was rarely good enough to hold a lead.

Rondo’s 14-assist performance ultimately had the larger impact. The point guard’s distribution keyed a larger 29 assists on 37 baskets effort, including nine assists from Kevin Garnett.

“It was contagious,” Rondo said of the ball movement. “It started when we first came out, the first play of the game. KG, you look up, and he has about six (assists) at halftime. When guys are moving the ball, we are a great team. We are fun to watch. We shared the ball tonight and played very unselfishly.”

And still they carried a teetering 95-91 lead into the last two minutes, when Udonis Haslem fouled Garnett. Garnett was only able to hit the first free throw, and Quentin Richardson made the C’s pay dearly with a 3-pointer.

Kendrick Perkins [stats] repeated Garnett’s 1-of-2 performance the next time down for a 97-94 edge with 1:22 left.

This time the C’s managed to turn the corner with the sort of defensive play they used to make routinely.

Wade and Ray Allen exchanged misses before Tony Allen delivered the night’s big stop, stripping Wade, getting fouled and hitting both free throws for a 99-94 lead with 36.5 seconds left.

“I’ve said it for the last three, four, five games, Tony Allen is playing great defense,” said Rasheed Wallace, whose sentiment was seconded by Rivers.

“You can point him at someone and say, ‘Guard him,’ every night,” the Celtics [team stats] coach said of the benefit of running Allen, who started in place of Paul Pierce [stats], with the first unit. “There’s not a team I can think of without a good 2 or 3 on their team. So every night you can say, ‘Tony, guard this guy.’ ”

The Celtics had one last chance when Haslem was fouled while grabbing an offensive rebound. But he fell into the Garnett/Perkins trap and hit only the second of two free throws.