NBA Roundup : Celtics Show They Can Fly High Without Bird

Even without Larry Bird, the Boston Celtics still are super on Super Bowl Sunday.

The Celtics blew open the game with a 39-point third quarter and rolled past the Detroit Pistons, 112-99, Sunday for their seventh consecutive victory on Super Bowl Sunday.

Boston, struggling to reach the .500 mark and stay in the running for the playoffs until Bird returns, improved its record to 18-20.

“The Celtics have a lot of life without Bird,” Detroit’s Isiah Thomas said.

“Of course, the Celtics are not as good a team as they used to be because they’re missing Larry, but we didn’t do the things we wanted defensively. We were pretty solid except for about a 5-minute stretch in the third quarter.”

With Bird, recovering from foot surgery, watching from the end of the bench, the Celtics survived an 18-point second quarter and avenged a 96-87 loss at Detroit last Monday.

The Celtics snapped Detroit’s 3-game winning streak while handing the Pistons a sixth consecutive road defeat.

“The Celtics played like All-Stars today,” Detroit Coach Chuck Daly said. “Our effort was excellent, but their effort and play was better than ours.”

Thomas, who had 26 points, pulled Detroit into a 44-44 tie in the opening minute of the second half, but the Celtics regained the lead on baskets by Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale.

With Boston ahead, 49-48, Danny Ainge, returning from a 2-game absence because of back trouble, hit on a 3-point shot, triggering the big rally with his first points of the game.

The Celtics increased their lead to six points, 68-62, before going on a 12-0 run that included 3 baskets by Robert Parish and a 3-point play by Ainge.

“The pick and roll ignited the third-period surge,” Ainge said. “We had about four in a row. Robert got us going. When he gets fired up, it becomes infectious because he doesn’t show too much emotion very often.”

Boston took an 83-66 lead into the final period. Detroit narrowed the gap to 11 points, but the Celtics built the lead to as much as 100-79, then breezed the rest of the way.

“Our shot selection was better than in Detroit and our intensity level was high from start to finish,” Boston Coach Jimmy Rodgers said. “The quality of our play was good. We were very patient, we executed and we got the shots we wanted.”

McHale scored 27 points for the Celtics. Parish had 22, Lewis added 21, Dennis Johnson got 13 and Ainge scored 10.

Vinnie Johnson had 24 points and Bill Laimbeer 17 for Detroit.

New York 120, Portland 116--Gerald Wilkins scored 26 points and Mark Jackson made two important steals in the final minutes as the Knicks beat the Trail Blazers despite Clyde Drexler’s 48 points.

New York, which snapped a 3-game losing streak, all on the road, trailed, 77-57, in the third quarter. The Knicks closed to 84-79 in the next 5 minutes as Wilkins scored 7 points.

Rod Strickland scored 5 points in a 9-2 run at the end of the quarter, his basket pulling New York to within 90-88 at the end of the period. The Knicks went ahead, 114-113, with 2:53 left on a layup by Wilkins after Jackson, who scored 19 points, stole a pass from Portland’s Terry Porter.

Patrick Ewing had 22 points, including a layup with 2:10 left that made it 116-113 left. Jackson intercepted a pass from Drexler and was fouled by Porter on a breakaway. Jackson made 2 free throws to give New York a 118-113 lead with 1:46 left.