Boston seeks to avoid another letdown against Indiana.

WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) – The Boston Celtics hope a change of scenery helps when they return to their homecourt trailing Indiana 2-0. Too bad the length of the game hasn’t changed.

The Celtics must play a full 48 minutes of good basketball Friday night – something poor rebounding and a lack of depth has kept them from doing – to beat a Pacers team that had the best regular-season record in the NBA.

“I don’t think it takes a perfect game” to beat the Pacers, Boston coach John Carroll said Thursday. “I just think it takes a higher level of play for more than 36 minutes.”

The Pacers, seeded first in the Eastern Conference, won the opener 104-88 after outscoring eighth-seeded Boston 35-14 in the second quarter. They made it two straight Tuesday night with a 103-90 win after being behind 69-65 going into the fourth quarter.

“We’ve got to be able to match their intensity for all four quarters and we haven’t done that yet,” Boston’s Paul Pierce said.

Indiana forward Jermaine O’Neal, averaging 23 points and 11 rebounds in the two games, missed practice Thursday with a sinus infection and was probable for Game 3 of the best-of-seven series.

Backups carried Indiana in the fourth quarter of Game 2, and the bench will be bolstered when Ron Artest reclaims his starting forward position.

While Artest served a one-game suspension for coming off the bench after Boston’s Brandon Hunter pulled O’Neal to the floor in the opener, Al Harrington started and had 12 points and 13 rebounds.

“Every time I sit out a game, I think about winning and coming back and having a strong game,” Artest said.

His absence gave the Celtics a better chance to win and Pierce an opportunity to avoid being guarded by the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year. But the Celtics lost and Pierce went 7-for-18 from the field.

“They had less depth, you would think, but their depth is what really came back to haunt us,” Carroll said. “What you’re really seeing is a No. 1 team playing a No. 8 team and every time you think you have one problem solved there’s another problem that arises.”

Carroll paraphrased former Celtics coach Rick Pitino, who said after a frustrating loss in February 2000, “Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door.”

But one member of the Big Three that won three NBA titles with Boston in the 1980s actually will attend. Bird will walk through the door as Indiana’s president of basketball operations.

“Unfortunately,” Carroll said, “he won’t be wearing a green-and-white uniform.”

The Pacers have outscored Boston 98-58 in the paint and 42-19 in second chance points and hold a 31-17 edge in offensive rebounds.

That could change at the FleetCenter, but their 27 road wins is a franchise record. And the Pacers went 3-1 against the Celtics in the regular season and were 2-0 in Boston.

Last season Boston eliminated Indiana in a six-game playoff series, winning all three games at home by margins of 10, 18 and 20 points. But only three current Celtics were on that team.

“We have to focus in,” Indiana’s Reggie Miller said. “It’s going to be a loud building, we won’t be able to hear any of our plays called. We’re going to have to run off our own emotion out there.”

Indiana coach Rick Carlisle, a former Celtics guard, expects to face a hostile crowd of fans and doesn’t think the series is as one-sided as the final scores indicate.

“We’ve given up way too many points off some careless turnovers. We’ve allowed them to march to the free throw line continuously,” said Carlisle, who expects a more physical game. “We’re lucky to be up 2-0. “

Still, with bench players like Harrington, Austin Croshere, Jonathan Bender, Fred Jones and Anthony Johnson, the Pacers are very deep.

“They have two teams that could possibly start and be a playoff team,” Boston’s Chucky Atkins said. “We’ve proven that we can play with them. We just have to finish them off. I’m optimistic that we can get the job done.”

AP-ES-04-22-04 1921EDT