Bad start a tipoff of things to come

CLEVELAND - Mindful of his team's struggles away from home this postseason, Doc Rivers knew if the Celtics had any hope of gaining their first playoff road victory last night it would be imperative to match the Cavaliers' intensity from start to finish in Game 3 at Quicken Loans Arena.

"They're going to have great energy at the beginning of the game," Rivers said during the morning shootaround. "And if they do get off to a great start, we'll still have 44 minutes to make it back up."

Rivers was only partially correct in his pregame prediction. The Celtics stumbled at the start and never recovered in a 108-84 smackdown before a hostile crowd of 20,562.

The Cavaliers, looking to climb out of a 2-0 series deficit in this best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal, indeed came out of the blocks playing with a great sense of urgency and energy in the first four minutes. On that count, Rivers was right.

The Celtics, however, were unable to match it over the next 44 minutes.

After Kendrick Perkins scored on a layup for a 4-0 lead, the Cavaliers came roaring back with a 14-0 run that left the Celtics with a 10-point deficit six minutes into the game. The lead was 32-13 after one quarter.

"It was unbelievable," said Cavaliers star LeBron James. "Defensively, we were in tune and offensively we knocked down shots. To be up 19 points after the first quarter, that's pretty good."

By that point, Game 3 clearly belonged to the Cavaliers.

"We've got to do a better job at the start of games, especially on the road," lamented Celtics captain Paul Pierce. "We understand this team is playing with its backs against the wall and we've got to do the same. We can't get comfortable with a 2-0 lead against the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially on the road. We've got to do a better job of showing a sense of urgency, on both ends of the court.

"On the road it's going to take a little bit more than we did when we were at home, but we're going to learn our lesson pretty soon."

Even Rivers let his frustration boil over when referee Bennett Salvatore assessed him a technical foul after the Celtics coach howled over a call against Kevin Garnett, when Cavaliers guard Delonte West tried to block Garnett on a run-out and got steamrolled. Instead of calling West for the block, Garnett was called for the charge.

"In the last two games, Cleveland has come out with more energy to start and gotten off to great starts," Rivers said. "We've talked about that we were lucky we were at home in Game 2. [The visiting team] gets off to a good start and you're at home, you can bounce back. You do that on the road, it's very difficult to get back in the game and tonight was a great example of that."

As far as Rajon Rondo was concerned, the reason the Celtics stumbled out of the blocks was a simple matter of shot selection. The Celtics shot 6 of 19 from the field in the first quarter. With the Celtics trailing, 18-8, Garnett (who had a team-leading 17 points) was 3 of 5 from the field. The rest of the Celtics, meanwhile, were 1 for 9.

"I guess the offensive end, we were settling for jump shots," said Rondo, who scored 7 points on 3-for-10 shooting and had no assists in 23 minutes of play. "You probably noticed tonight that we shot a lot of jump shots and they didn't fall and they made runs.

"Like I said, it's hard to come on the road and to settle for jump shots and not get the rebounds. That let the opposing team get off to a great start."

Asked if he felt a responsibility to take more leadership of the offense, Rondo said, "Yeah, but I want to do it within the team concept. At the start of the game, I probably need to be more aggressive in transition, but I think it starts with defense. We need to get more stops in order to start the transition break."

Like many things, such as energy and offensive spark, it was lacking in Boston's flawed start last night.

"This is the NBA," Rivers said. "Nothing surprises me in this league. I didn't think this would happen, but it did happen. As a team, we just have to be ready for Monday night."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.