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 EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) - After 44 minutes of awful basketball, Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics did everything necessary to make the New Jersey Nets feel miserable. Pierce atoned for a woeful shooting effort with a 3-pointer late in regulation and two jumpers in overtime to rally the Celtics to a 96-88 victory Saturday.
"What a great win for our guys," said coach Doc Rivers, who recently saw the Celtics lose a franchise-record 18 straight games. "We were out of this game. We kept fighting back and hanging in there. They really executed the last two minutes, offensively and defensively. I couldn't ask for anything better, even if we lost the game."
The Celtics should have lost. They trailed by 11 points with less than four minutes to play, and had nothing going on offense until everything magically came together. They scored on 10 of their last 11 possessions in regulation, getting 3-pointers from Pierce and Delonte West in the final 11 seconds of the fourth quarter to tie the game at 83.
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