Celtics take 3-2 lead with rout of host Cavs

CLEVELAND - The Boston Celtics pushed the Cleveland Cavaliers dangerously close to an early start to the Summer of LeBron.

Ray Allen scored 25 points, Rajon Rondo scored all of his 16 in the second half and the Celtics, once thought too old to challenge for another title, beat LeBron James and the Cavs, 120-88, in Game 5 last night to move within one win of knocking the NBA's top team from the playoffs.

Paul Pierce added 21 and Kevin Garnett 18 for the Celtics, who handed the Cavs their worst home playoff loss in history and can end Cleveland's season with a win in Game 6 Thursday night in Boston.

James, the league's two-time MVP on the verge of an expected trip into free agency July 1, had an atrocious game. He scored 15 points and shot 3-for-14, a startling outing for the 25-year-old who has been playing with a sprained elbow.

Because of James' uncertain future, Game 5 may have been his last at home for Cleveland and it has set up Game 6 as the most important in franchise history: win and force Game 7 on Sunday in Cleveland; lose and maybe watch James, the local kid trying to deliver this city its first pro championship since 1964, leave for good.

"We cannot come back here," Garnett said. "We have to think this is our Game 7 coming up and we cannot afford to have the best team in the league have a Game 7 on their floor. Just not possible."

Rondo, coming off a 29-point, 18-rebound, 13-assist performance in Game 4, was without a point in the first half as the Cavs concentrated their defense on stopping the point guard from penetrating into the paint. He finally got loose in the third, scoring 12 as the Celtics opened a 21-point lead.

Boston went up by 24 in the fourth, sending battered Cleveland fans toward the exits.

James finally checked out with 3:58 left and the Celtics leading by 27. He shrugged his shoulders and slapped hands with Cleveland's coaches and teammate Shaquille O'Neal, who had 21 points.

Before the game, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said his team would not change its strategy.

"We are who we are," Rivers said. "We don't need anyone to play hero basketball. We have to be a team. We're good when we're a team."

And through five games, the Celtics have been the better one. They've outperformed the top-seeded Cavs in almost every aspect of the game, outrunning and outhustling a younger team that with the addition of O'Neal, Antawn Jamison and Anthony Parker, was built for the postseason but has yet to show it's serious about winning a title.

Allen opened the second half with back-to-back three-pointers, pushing Boston's six-point halftime lead to 12 and deflating already nervous Cleveland fans, who have seen so many of their teams choke in pressure situations before.

In the first half, the Cavs did a brilliant job on Rondo, who didn't score his first points until 9:47 was left in the third quarter. But by then, the Celtics had opened their double-digit lead and with James misfiring from the outside, Cleveland was in big trouble.

James missed his first seven shots before he got loose on a leak-out dunk with 6:15 left in the third.