Celtics rip Heat; Grizzlies romp

BOSTON - Rajon Rondo had six points and 11 assists despite playing the fourth quarter with a dislocated left elbow, and the Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat, 97-81, on Saturday night in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Miami leads the best-of-seven series, two games to one, with Game 4 Monday night in Boston.

Kevin Garnett had 28 points and 18 rebounds, and Paul Pierce scored 27 for the defending East champions, who managed to avoid a 3-0 hole that no NBA team has ever overcome.

Dwyane Wade had 23 points and seven assists, and Joel Anthony continued to contribute off the bench, scoring 12 with 11 rebounds. LeBron James scored 15, as he and Wade combined to make just 14 of 35 shots from the floor.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Zach Randolph had 21 points and a franchise-record 21 rebounds as the Grizzlies rallied from a 16-point deficit to stun the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime and grab a two-games-to-one lead in their Western Conference semifinal series.

Memphis is trying to do something that no NBA team has done in climbing from the No. 8 seed all the way to the Western Conference finals. They moved two wins away from that by remaining undefeated on their home court this postseason.

The Grizzlies did it with an amazing comeback in a game in which early on they couldn't have looked more rusty or out of sync, but scored the first six points of overtime to finish off the victory.

The Thunder's Kevin Durant, the NBA's scoring leader in the regular season and these playoffs, took only three shots in overtime and missed them all. He finished with 22 points, his lowest this postseason after averaging 31.6 points coming in.

O.J. Mayo had 18 points off the bench. Mike Conley also scored 18. Marc Gasol had 16, and Tony Allen 10.

DALLAS - Kobe Bryant knows the deal, now that his Lakers are down, three games to none, to the Mavericks after Friday night's loss here. He knows none of the 98 NBA teams facing that deficit have ever come back to win a series.

Yet Bryant also knows his team has won the last two championships, and reached the finals three straight years. And that his soon-to-be-retired coach has won a record 11 championships and has never been swept in his 20 years on the sideline.

Bryant also realizes how close his team is to leading this series, 2-1. Los Angeles blew a 16-point lead in the opener, losing only in the final seconds, and on Friday night it fell apart down the stretch on the way to a 98-92 loss.

So, with all that in mind, he made this declaration after the Game 3 defeat: "I think we're still going to win the series."

Confidence, eh? Well, he also prefaced that line by laughing and saying, "I might be sick in the head or crazy."