And for their next act, Celtics will try some Magic today
The Celtics' 105-94 win over Cleveland Friday night could go far in determining home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The contest provided drama - another LeBron James-Paul Pierce duel, the ejection of Glen Davis, a spectacular 26-minute performance from Leon Powe.
But all of that was only a warm-up for today's visit from Orlando, according to Pierce.
"This is even a bigger game coming up for us," Pierce said. "If we win this game, we win the season series on Orlando."
The Celtics are battling the Cavaliers and the third-place Magic for the conference's best record. The Celtics are 2-1 against the Cavs, with an April 12 visit to Cleveland remaining, and 2-0 against Orlando with two games left against the Magic.
Cleveland squandered a chance against the Celtics, who were missing Kevin Garnett (knee strain).
"We wanted this one real bad, I'm not going to deny it," said former Celtic Wally Szczerbiak, who scored 4 points for the Cavaliers. "We felt like it was an opportunity to steal one and win the series. We've got to give them credit, they played well."
Garnett has missed seven games (the Celtics are 5-2 since he was injured Feb. 19) and is expected to be out for today's game and a Wednesday visit to Miami.
"You never say never, but we definitely would be at a disadvantage, especially if we had lost to them at home," Pierce said. "It would have been their home court to lose.
"But we put ourselves right back in the race. Hopefully, we can carry this win over to Orlando and continue playing well until the big fella gets back.
"We don't schedule-watch, we don't look ahead. I mean, we never talked about Cleveland before this, never talked about Orlando before this. We focused on the schedule and the team that's in front of us."
The Celtics (49-14) are two games behind last season's pace after 63 games.
"We still have a lot of work to do," guard Ray Allen said. "We really haven't talked about home court as much as last year. We had a lot of guys who really didn't understand what it was going to do for us, how much it was going to pay dividends, but now I think everybody knows exactly what we need to do."
Pierce outscored James, 29-21, and Powe added 20 points and 11 rebounds Friday.
"I just tried to run him into my play, take away his easy transition buckets, not let him get any demoralizing dunks," Pierce said of James. "That really gets his team going, when he's out there dunking the ball and he's getting into a rhythm."
In the last meeting between the Celtics and Magic Jan. 22, Davis outplayed Dwight Howard in the second half. There was concern that Davis could be suspended for today's game because of his flagrant-2 foul Friday (knocking down Cleveland's Anderson Varejao 2:21 into the second half). However, an NBA spokesman said yesterday there would be no suspension . . . The Magic are adjusting to the loss of point guard Jameer Nelson (shoulder), and they recently acquired Rafer Alston from Houston. Nelson was injured a week before the All-Star Game. "I'm excited for him to come back," Alston said. "I understand he's a starter. I'll come off the bench and be a spark. With each practice and each game, it gets better. It's not like I need to score 20 a game. The sky is the limit for this team. We have good shooters, post-up [players]. Guys who can run the floor with energy. But there is room for improvement."
Marc J. Spears of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 
