Celtics can just taste it

They'd love another win on Pistons' home court

Paul Pierce was able to relax a little yesterday now that the Celtics have regained home-court advantage. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. - After going hungry on the road for a while, the now gluttonous Celtics hope to take another bite out of the Pistons tonight.

Boston finally won its first road game of the postseason by defeating the Pistons, 94-80, in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Game 4 is back there tonight, and although getting a postseason win at Detroit was a big accomplishment, the Celtics are hungry to come back to Boston with another victory in hand.

"It's not a win-one-and-be-happy type of thing," said forward Kevin Garnett during a media session at the team's hotel yesterday. "You take it one game at a time, one day at a time, one play at a time."

Said forward Paul Pierce, "We're not satisfied, that's the thing about it. We are happy to get a win on the road and get home court back. But we are getting hungrier. We are getting selfish with what we're trying to do now.

"When you win one, you want to get another one. That's the mental attitude we got right now."

The mentality Pierce spoke of was quite different than the one the Celtics had when they arrived for Game 3 with the best-of-seven series tied at 1. Back then, it was just about trying to get one road win, period.

Boston won an NBA-best 31 regular-season road games, including sweeping the tough Texas Triangle (consecutive wins at San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas) and winning at Utah, Detroit, and at the Lakers. But the regular-season road success didn't translate into the playoffs, as the Celtics lost all three games at Atlanta in the first round and at Cleveland in the second round.

Pierce described the playoff road struggles as a "gorilla" on the Celtics' backs. Guard Ray Allen also said the woes were a "little monstrous." But with the win at Detroit, Boston washed away all that doubt and regained its swagger away from TD Banknorth Garden.

"It feels good to get a win," Pierce said. "But you got to win four games. I'll feel even happier if we won the series. It's a great win, especially on the road in a tough environment. But we got to win two more."

Said Allen, "With each [road loss] the animal grew. Whether we talked about it or not, everybody else talked about it, [but] it was going to be the deciding factor to whether we were successful or not."

It's tough enough that the Celtics are playing a veteran Pistons team that has advanced to six straight East finals. In addition, the Palace of Auburn Hills is widely considered one of the NBA's wildest and loudest arenas.

Public address announcer John Mason is well-known for belting out, "Deee-troit Bas-ket-ball!" The pyrotechnics and cannon sounds during introductions hype up the crowd more. Forward Rasheed Wallace points at each section in the arena before the game starts in an attempt to get them rocking. And there may not be a crowd that heckles the road team better than Detroit's.

The Celtics, however, silenced the Pistons faithful by starting Game 3 with an 11-0 run. The fans were never a major factor after that. Boston is hoping for another great start tonight to quiet the fans the Pistons feed off.

"It's going to be very important to get off to a good start and be aggressive," Pierce said. "They are one of the loudest crowds in the NBA. And everybody knows that once you get your crowd behind you, you get a little bit more energy and momentum. It's tough if you dig yourself a hole, especially if you're the road team.

"It's important for us to get off to a great start, play sound defense, move the ball, and try to take the crowd out of the game early, because once they get going, they're going."

The Pistons have little margin for error as they must win three games out of a possible four to move on to the NBA Finals.

While the momentum is now strongly in the Celtics' favor, don't expect them to take the most decorated Eastern Conference team this decade lightly.

"I don't think there is any complacency with this team," Pierce said. "We feel like it's good to be up, 2-1, but it would be even better going up, 3-1. We don't want to come back to Detroit if we can. We have a tremendous opportunity [tonight], so hopefully guys don't take this opportunity for granted."

Said guard Rajon Rondo, "It's too big of a series. It's either win or go home, so you know you don't want to go back to the house with a loss. So we definitely want to try to take advantage of getting another win here on the road."

Marc J. Spears can be reached at mspears@globe.com