Boston, MA (My Sportsbook) - Kevin Garnett scored 20 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and handed out four assists, as the Boston Celtics used a dominant defensive effort to smother the Indiana Pacers, 92-77, at TD Banknorth Garden.

Paul Pierce added 13 points, five rebounds and five assists, and Leon Powe scored 14 to go with nine boards off the bench, as Boston won its fifth straight and improved to an impressive 33-6 at home on the season.

Just three nights after limiting lowly Miami to an NBA-record-low 17 made field goals, Boston clamped down on a hot-shooting Indiana team, holding the Pacers to an abysmal 26-for-73 (35.6 percent) effort from the floor. Indy hit just nine field goals in the first half, shooting 25 percent, and was 1-for-12 from three-point range en route to a 6-for-29 (20.7 percent) showing from behind the arc on the night.

Ray Allen scored 15 for the C's, while James Posey contributed seven points and seven boards in the winning effort. Boston extended its Eastern Conference lead over idle Detroit to 6 1/2 games, and has now won 17 of 20 in Beantown.

"(It) is important for us to set a tone, regardless of who we are playing," said Pierce. "We're building to get better regardless of our opponent. If that were the Los Angeles Lakers coming in it would have been the same focus."

Danny Granger led Indiana with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Troy Murphy went for 11 points and 10 boards in the loss. Jermaine O'Neal, in his second outing since a 33-game stint on the disabled list, scored 12 points in 20-plus minutes. Mike Dunleavy also scored 12, but committed eight of his team's 20 turnovers.

The Pacers (31-44) fell four games behind Atlanta for the eighth and final spot in the East, after the Hawks pulled out an overtime win over Toronto.

"We didn't make the shots that we had to in the first half," said Pacers head coach Jim O'Brien. "We dug ourselves too big of a hole to come back against these guys. We didn't put our best foot forward and we had an opportunity to make this a lot closer game than it was and we didn't do it."

Garnett and Pierce had eight first-quarter points apiece, helping stake Boston to a 29-17 advantage. Garnett hit a jumper off a pick-and-pop, and Posey got loose for an easy dunk to give the Celtics their largest lead to that point, 39-24, with 6:38 to go in the half.

Indiana's shooting woes continued, as it went more than six minutes between an O'Neal jumper and a Dunleavy lay-in, and found itself down 49-30 at half.

Boston burst out of the locker room and ripped off seven straight - highlighted by a Pierce-to-Garnett alley-oop and an Allen three - to quickly stretch the spread to 26 points less than two minutes into the third.

After a timeout, Indy responded with nine straight to get back within 17, but then settled for trading baskets and still trailed 68-52 going to the fourth.

The Pacers got as close as 15 during the final stanza, but Eddie House stemmed the tide with a three from the corner and Boston cruised without much of a threat from there.

Game Notes

The Celtics became the first team to win 60 games in the NBA this season, and the first Boston team to reach that plateau since the 1985-86 NBA Championship squad; the C's also tied the 1997-98 San Antonio Spurs for the best one-year turnaround in NBA history, having won 36 more games than they did a season ago...Boston shot just 44 percent from the floor, but made 16-of-21 from the foul line and outrebounded Indiana, 51-41...The Celtics also had 27 assists on their 35 made field goals...Indy was just 16-for-29 at the free throw line.