MIAMI_The Boston Celtics' mastery of the Miami Heat continued Saturday night _ even with a roster vastly different than one coach Brad Stevens put on the floor in Boston's season series sweeps of Miami each of the last two seasons.
Behind a game-high 24 points from Kyrie Irving _ who scored the last nine points of the game for Boston _ and a relentless Celtics defense which produced 19 turnovers and held Miami to 43 percent shooting, Boston beat Miami for the eighth straight time 96-90 at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Goran Dragic led the Heat (2-3) with 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting and helped rally Miami to within a bucket at 88-86 with 1:53 to play in the fourth quarter. But the Heat couldn't stop Irving late and shot 7-of-31 from three-point range, struggling to find many open looks most of the night.
Miami led 26-21 after one quarter, but never led again after the Celtics went on a 11-0 run midway through the second quarter and took a 47-45 lead into the half.
Miami, which came in averaging the third-fewest turnovers in the league at 13.8 per game, had 11 first half turnovers which led directly to 15 points for Boston, which finished with 21 points off Heat turnovers.
With Hassan Whiteside out for the fourth game in a row with a bone bruise to his left knee, rookie Bam Adebayo made his second straight start at center for Miami and had six points and three rebounds and a block in 24 minutes. He played valuable minutes in the fourth quarter.
Dion Waiters played only 24 minutes and none in the fourth quarter. He finished 2-of-8 shooting for five points.
