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BOSTON – Paul Pierce scored 29 points, reserve Leon Powe had 20 points and 11 rebounds, and the Boston Celtics beat Cleveland 105-94 on Friday night to move within percentage points of the Cavaliers in the race for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James has the ball knocked away from him by Boston Celtics' Kendrick Perkins

The Cavaliers (48-13) lead Boston (49-14) in winning percentage .787 to .778, though the Celtics took the lead in the head-to-head tiebreaker, 2-1, with an April 12 game in Cleveland remaining.

Mo Williams scored 26 for Cleveland and LeBron James had 21, shooting just 5-of-15 from the field to go with 9-for-12 from the line. He spent the final minutes on the bench after the Cavaliers couldn't narrow a double-digit deficit.

All-Star forward Kevin Garnett missed his seventh straight game for Boston with a strained knee muscle, and backup Glen "Big Baby" Davis was ejected in the third quarter for a flagrant foul. Powe filled in and reached season highs in both points and rebounds, giving the Celtics a spark with a blocked shot and a basket at the other end that opened a 94-83 lead.

After James missed a 3-pointer, Powe grabbed the rebound and Pierce hit a pair of free throws, then Powe dunked to give the Celtics a 98-83 lead — their biggest of the game.

The home team has won the first three matchups of the season series, and home court could prove even more important if they meet again in the playoffs. Boston eliminated the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals last year en route to its NBA-record 17th championship; the home team won all seven games in the series.

The crowd noise at tipoff was reminiscent of last spring's playoffs, but nothing in the first half really excited the fans as much as James' missed dunk with 8 minutes left in the first period. Bringing the ball back with for a tomahawk slam, he instead banged it off the back of the rim — to the delight of the sellout crowd.

The intensity returned in the second when the players went chest-to-chest under the Cavs basket after Davis wrapped up Anderson Varejao to prevent an easy layup. James and Ray Allen began jawing at each other while officials tried to separate them. They were each called for technical fouls, as was Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

Davis was called for a flagrant foul and ejected — exacerbating Boston's problem at power forward. (All seemed to be forgiven later in the third, when Allen fouled James to stop him from an easy basket; James helped Allen up and gave him a friendly tap on the behind.)

After the free throws, James hit a 3-pointer and Williams followed with a fadeaway jumper that cut Boston's seven-point lead to 55-54. Cleveland soon made it 57-all, but Pierce hit a jumper before Allen hit a 3-pointer and then scored on a breakaway, losing the handle of the ball only to have it bounce off James and back into Allen's hands for the reverse layup.

Boston led 68-63 when Pierce hit back-to-back 3-pointers to make it an 11-point game.

Notes:@ It was the first time in NBA history that two teams leading their divisions by at least 17 games had met. ... Joe Smith, who was traded last summer in the deal that brought Williams to Cleveland, returned after buying out his contract with Oklahoma City and re-signing with the Cavs on Thursday. ... Cleveland forward Ben Wallace missed his fifth straight game with a broken right fibula. ... Cleveland shot 38 free throws to 12 for Boston. ... James went 13:11 between field goals as the score went from 55-52 to 88-77.

CLEVELAND – LeBron James never saw this steal coming.

Two days after Cleveland's superstar recorded an apparent historic triple-double in a 107-102 win against the New York Knicks, the NBA stripped James of one of his 10 rebounds after reviewing game tape. The league said the rebound with 39.3 seconds left should have been credited to Cavaliers center Ben Wallace, who tapped a loose ball that James grabbed.

Wallace finished with two rebounds but probably should have had more as several tip-outs were not scored as rebounds by the stats crew at Madison Square Garden.

A release from the league said: "All NBA games are reviewed to ensure the accuracy of the game statistics." Wallace benefited from a review in a game at Charlotte on Dec. 6, when a blocked shot originally credited to Zydrunas Ilgauskas was changed to Wallace.

James finished with 52 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds.

If his triple-double had stood, it would have been the first 50-point game in a triple-double since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1975. Instead, James lost it and the Cavaliers were dealt a second slap from the league as point guard Mo Williams was not picked — for the second time — as an All-Star reserve on Thursday.

With Orlando guard Jameer Nelson out with a shoulder injury, commissioner David Stern selected Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen over Williams, a slight that drew criticism from Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert and several Cavaliers. Williams, who is averaging 17.1 points for the Central-leading Cavs, was also left off the team in a vote by Eastern Conference coaches.

"Ben Wallace was right when he called Mo originally being passed over for the All-Star game a shamockery," Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert said in a tongue-in-cheek e-mail to The Associated Press. "But not naming him as the natural and obvious replacement for the unfortunately injured Jameer Nelson is stupidiculous, idillogical and preposterageous."

Earlier this week, James called Williams' initial snub as "a total smack in the face."

The Cavaliers, who will put their 23-game home winning streak on the line Sunday against the Los Angeles Lakers, are using Williams' omission as motivation.

"He has played so well all year long and we've played great," forward Wally Szczerbiak said. "Obviously LeBron is what makes our team tick, but there are other guys out there on the floor, especially Mo, who are contributing a lot. It's a real injustice that Mo didn't make it. I don't know, maybe the coaches haven't seen him enough. I can't understand why.

"He's made big shots and made big plays for us. What are you going to do? We'll just move forward and use it as motivation."

Cleveland will be represented in Phoenix by James as well as coach Mike Brown and his staff. Brown, though, feels the Cavaliers deserved more.

"It's unfortunate that at the end of the day Boston has three guys and Orlando has three guys and we have one," he said after practice on Friday. "LeBron is a hell of a player, but I wonder in people's minds, what does that say about the rest of our team? Defensively we're No. 1. I think our points per game differential is No. 1 Obviously, our record is what it is.

"There are a lot of things stat-wise that show we're a pretty good team. For us not to be represented by multiple guys is disappointing."

CLEVELAND – For days, LeBron James insisted facing the NBA champions in January was no ordinary regular-season game. He and his teammates proved it.

Cleveland Cavaliers' Anderson Varejao, from Brazil, center, hugs Mo Williams as they watch the final

James scored 38 points, harassed Paul Pierce all over the floor and strengthened his case to be the league's MVP front-runner as the Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 19-0 at home by beating the staggering Boston Celtics 98-83 Friday night in a game oozing with postseason intensity.

James scored 23 in the second half. He added seven rebounds, six assists, four steals and three blocks.

After the Cavs had built their lead to a comfortable 20 points in the second half, Cleveland fans began chanting "M-V-P!"

There was no debate this night.

With James leading the way, the Cavaliers handed the Celtics their second-worst loss of the season and dropped them to 2-7 since opening 27-2. Boston had to resort to fouling Ben Wallace to try to trim Cleveland's lead in the fourth, but the Hack-A-Ben strategy was hardly effective as Cleveland's forward, a 44 percent free-throw shooter, made 5-of-10 free throws after being fouled on five straight possessions.

When he was taken out, Wallace shot a menacing stare toward Boston coach Doc Rivers.

Pierce, who came in averaging 19.5 points, was held to 11 on 4-of-15 shooting. Boston's leading scorer only got into double digits when James turned him over to Wally Szczerbiak in the fourth. Before that, James wouldn't let Pierce get out of his sight, chasing up, down and around the 94-foot court.

Kevin Garnett had 18 points and 15 rebounds, and Rajon Rondo added 13 assists for the Celtics, who shot only 41 percent from the floor and didn't have their usual swagger.

Anderson Varejao scored 14 points and Mo Williams 13 for Cleveland, which avenged a season-opening road loss to the Celtics despite playing without injured center Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

The win was vital to the Cavaliers, who lost Game 7 in Boston in last year's Eastern Conference semifinals and want to secure home-court advantage during the playoffs this season. The first tiebreaker if the teams end up with the same record is head-to-head matchups.

James scored 13 in the third quarter, but was his swarming defense — especially on Pierce — that allowed the Cavaliers to take a 72-60 into the fourth.

With James cutting off his driving lanes and keeping a hand in his face, Pierce missed all four shots he attempted in the third. After misfiring on a long 3-pointer just before the horn, a frustrated Pierce turned and said something to fans sitting in courtside seats. They just laughed as he walked to the bench.

Cleveland and Boston have developed a healthy, heated rivalry, something Rivers wishes was more prevalent around the league.

"I think you have to play a team in the playoffs to get a better rivalry, like us with Cleveland," Rivers said. "I think that's what starts it. You see a team every night, seven times, the next time you see them in the next regular season, you can't love each other anymore."

There's no love lost as the teams didn't need long to get reacquainted.

Garnett was called for a technical four in the first quarter when he got caught slapping Varejao's arm after he was shoved by the Cavs forward. James, too, hit the deck after a drive but that seemed to be more the result of him trying to get a call than hard contact.

Cleveland's fans were fired up and in playoff form before the opening tip and the team cranked up the pregame pyrotechnics inside Quicken Loans Arena to levels not seen since last season's Boston series. The added flames may have been requested by Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, who was unable to make it down from his home in Detroit because of heavy snow.

The Cavaliers made their first six shots from the field and finished the first quarter 13-of-18 — James had four of the five misses — to lead 33-23 after one.

Notes:@ James hasn't decided whether he'll play on the next Olympic team at the 2012 Games in London. Right now, he can't even think about it. USA Basketball's Jerry Colangelo, who put together the 2008 gold medal-winning team, is expected to ask some potential Olympians of their interest at next month's All-Star game in Phoenix. "I won't be ready to answer that," said James, who was asked if he would play in Turkey at the 2010 world championships. "I won't be ready answer that either. That's like next month." ... Rivers joked that Cleveland wasn't always a hostile environment for visitors. "The day LeBron was drafted made it a tougher place to play," he said with a laugh. "I'm just going to leave it there." ... The Cavs play six of their next seven on the road, including four on a West Coast trip.