Celtics route Heat, emerge as big winners from Sunday matinees

BOSTON – There were a pair of big-picture matinees in the NBA on Sunday, and in the end, the Celtics came out the big winners by crushing the Heat here at TD Garden, 91-72.

Little surprise that it was Rajon Rondo who led Celtics to a rout over Miami on a Sunday national TV game. In three of four Sunday games televised on ABC, Rondo has put up a triple-double. He finished the Heat game with 16 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds, and in the three ABC games that have been played in Boston this season, he has averaged 22.0 points, 16.3 assists and 12.7 rebounds.

"We're going to tell him we're playing on ABC every day," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "One of the things about the game today going in, we told Rondo we needed him to be a scorer. Not necessarily a playmaker, but a scorer. And I thought he set the tone at the beginning of the game doing that, and I thought he loosened it up for everybody else to get into the game. He was terrific."

Boston also got double-digit scoring from all five starters, including a game-high 23 from Paul Pierce.

With the win, Boston’s seven in its last eight games, the Celtics move a full game ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers in the race for the Atlantic Division lead, while the Heat missed out on an opportunity to take advantage of a loss by the Bulls, who are leading the race for the top seed in the Eastern Conference by 3.5 games. Playing again without point guard Derrick Rose (groin), the Bulls were routed by the Thunder in Oklahoma City, 92-78.

Both of these races figure to impact the East's two top teams this spring. Should the Heat (now 37-14 overall) wind up with the top overall seed, they will earn home-court advantage throughout the East playoffs. That figures to be huge, because the Heat are 21-2 at home this year, and a pedestrian 16-12 on the road. But Miami is trailing the Bulls, as well as the Thunder in the West, by two games in the loss column.

Should the Celtics win the Atlantic Division, they will be guaranteed at least the No. 4 spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs and a home-court advantage in their postseason opener. The Celtics are a game ahead of the Sixers, who have a difficult closing month—Philadelphia plays 10 of its final 14 games on the road, including one in Boston next Sunday. The Sixers hold the tiebreaker over Boston, though.

Both the Sixers and Celtics are also wary of the Knicks, who have won nine of 11 since they replaced coach Mike D’Antoni with Mike Woodson on March 14. New York is just 2.5 games back of the Sixers, though the Knicks must play eight of their final 13 games on the road. But New York will be without Jeremy Lin for the rest of the season and Amare Stoudemire is out indefinitely.

The good news for the Heat is that their schedule softens up from here. They play 10 of their final 15 games at home, while the Bulls are still uncertain about the return of Rose. The Heat and Bulls play each other two more times this regular season—April 12 in Chicago and April 19 in Miami.