"The Indiana Pacers would be hard-pressed to come up with a good excuse for why they didn't beat the Boston Celtics on Friday night.

They weren't without three starters, as the Celtics were. They hadn't worked hard to come back from 27 points down against Orlando the previous night, before arriving back in Boston in the wee hours like the Celtics had.

You would have thought that was the case the way the Pacers played in their 94-87 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden.

The Pacers made their victory over Chicago earlier this week an afterthought by playing in lethargic fashion most of the night against the Celtics.

"Give credit to (Boston coach) Doc Rivers to continue to show that he is one of the best coaches in the NBA," Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. "He continues to remake his team's identity in light of all the injuries they have. They deserved to win tonight."

The Celtics didn't need the Big Three to beat the Pacers. They didn't even need the Big Two to beat them.

All they simply needed was for Paul Pierce to have a youth movement.

Pierce put his team on his back, scoring 17 of his game-high 28 points in the third quarter."