By A. Sherrod Blakely
CSNNE.com
NEW YORKAcross the globe, people celebrated Earth Day on Friday, a time to recognize the importance of, among many things, not wasting natural resources.
One of the greatest resources we have is time, something the Boston Celtics apparently are not in the mood to waste on the New York Knicks following a 113-96 win.
Throughout this series, the Celtics have relied on different stars to step up and carry them to victory.
On Friday, it was a collective beat-down administered by the C's who lead the best-of-seven series 3-0 with a chance to close out the series on Sunday which would be a first for the Celtics during the Big Three era.
Paul Pierce led all scorers with 38 points. Ray Allen wasn't too far behind, tallying 32 points which included eight 3-pointers.
And then there was Rajon Rondo orchestrating the pummeling, as he racked up a triple-double of 15 points, 11 rebounds and 20 assists.
Boston Celtics
Sweeping the Knicks would certainly add another chapter to the impressive resume of this core group of Celtics.
Yeah, that would be nice.
But this team isn't consumed with adding anything but Banner 18.
Disposing of the Knicks in as little time as possible, can only help.
"We put together four quarters," Rondo said. "In the first two (games), they outplayed us in the first three (quarters), but we just executed down the stretch."
On Friday, it wasn't about execution down the stretch.
It was about executing the Knicks in every way imaginable, for four quarters.
The C's did it with efficient scoring.
They did it with defense.
They did it by controlling the paint, evident by them being plus-10 on the boards which contributed to their 22-15 advantage on second-chance points.
As well as the Celtics were playing, it wasn't until the end of the third quarter did the Celtics begin to pull away.
Boston ended the third with a 21-9 run and led by 23 points going into the fourth.
New York had its problems, and it wasn't just how to deal with the Celtics.
The Knicks were without Chauncey Billups (left knee), and they weren't sure if they would have Amar'e Stoudemire (back spasms) until shortly before tip-off.
Stoudemire played, but clearly wasn't himself.
One of the league's premier forwards, Stoudemire had no explosiveness on his drives to the basket, and seemed to get very little lift on his jumpers.
Those two factors contributed heavily to him scoring just seven points while missing six of his eight shot attempts.
New York also had problems closing out quarters, which seemed to only give the Celtics added confidence that their dominance over the Knicks would continue.
"You can't give that big an opening where they smell blood," said Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni. "And they went for it."
Celtics Nation has been waiting for the C's to show a greater sense of urgency, the kind of killer instinct that the great teams seem to possess.
They did just that from the opening tip-off by scoring the game's first nine points.
"You come out, you hit them first," Pierce said. "You don't give (their fans) a reason to get involved. That was big. We were comfortable from there on out."
Boston led the entire game, but didn't start to put the game away until the third quarter.
That's when the Celtics closed out the third with a 21-9 run and led, 86-63, going into the fourth.
Boston tried to close the game out with its reserves, but we've seen how ugly that has been at times during the playoffs.
Friday was no exception, as the Knicks opened the fourth with a 7-0 spurt that cut Boston's lead to 86-70.
Boston responded by scoring five of the game's next seven points, including a jumper by Pierce that gave the C's a 91-72 lead with 8:44 to play.
The Celtics continued to control the game and eventually cleared the bench of all their backups, including veteran Troy Murphy who saw his first playoff action on Friday.
A. Sherrod Blakely can be reached at sblakely@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Sherrod on Twitter at http:twitter.comsherrodbcsn