HOUSTON - With Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki in another slump and Houston's Tracy McGrady suddenly struggling, unheralded Mavericks point guard Jason Terry rescued his team.
Terry scored a season-high 32, including a 3-pointer with 26.9 seconds left, and Michael Finley added 18, rallying Dallas from a seven-point, fourth-quarter deficit in a 97-93 win over the Rockets on Saturday.
The victory evened the best-of-seven, first-round series at two. Game 5 is Monday night in Dallas.
Homecourt advantage has been a disadvantage in this series - the road team has won all the games.
"Hopefully, home will be a safe haven at some point in this series," Mavericks guard Jerry Stackhouse said. "I think the pressure has been on us and now that the series is even, the pressure should be about the same."
While 14 teams in league history have come back from 0-2 deficits, only two have done it in a seven-game series after losing the first two at home. The 1994 Rockets did it against Phoenix, and the 1969 Lakers against the San Francisco Warriors.
The Mavericks rallied from two games down against Utah in the first round in 2001, but both losses came on the road.
McGrady led Houston with 36 points on 13 of 26 shooting, but came up short down the stretch. He had two points in the fourth quarter, missing all but one of his last five shots.
McGrady played a role in the Rockets' late collapse. He had a couple of terrible shots in the last minute and could not hold a rebound under Dallas' basket with Houston down by two with about 12 seconds left.
"It's very disappointing, the way we finished these last two games," Rockets guard David Wesley said. "It's two blown opportunities."
CELTICS 110, PACERS 79: Paul Pierce had 30 points, seven rebounds and eight assists, and visiting Boston found the perfect combination to even the series at two.
Ricky Davis added 15 points, and all the Celtics starters scored in double figures.
Stephen Jackson scored 24 to lead Indiana. Reggie Miller added 12 as the Pacers endured their worst playoff loss. It surpassed the Pacers' 24-point loss to Orlando on June 4, 1995, in the seventh game of the East finals.
Without forward Antoine Walker, who drew a one-game suspension for pushing an official Thursday, Boston used a smaller, quicker, better shooting team to prevent Indiana from getting into a rhythm. The Celtics shot 51.3 percent from the field in the first half and were better in the second, finishing with 56.8 percent shooting.
Indiana shot 22.7 percent in the first quarter, 31 percent in the half and a playoff record-low 26.9 percent for the game.
WIZARDS 117, BULLS 99: Etan Thomas scored 20, grabbed nine rebounds and, with fellow reserve Michael Ruffin, started a second-half rout with a big third-quarter run for host Washington.
The win was the first in the postseason since May 8, 1988, when the Wizards beat Detroit 106-103 in Game 4 of a first-round series. Washington trails in the series 2-1.
The Big Three of Gilbert Arenas, Larry Hughes and Antawn Jamison played their parts, but the trio that accounted for 66 percent of the scoring in Games 1 and 2 gained inspiration from Thomas, Ruffin and Brendan Haywood.
Arenas finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Hughes had 21 points and seven rebounds, and Jamison had 21 points and eight rebounds. Ruffin chipped in a season-high nine points, and Haywood had eight points and nine rebounds.
Tyson Chandler had 15 points and 10 rebounds to lead six Bulls in double figures. The Wizards held Chicago to 39 percent shooting and dominated the last 17 minutes.
KINGS: Coach Rick Adelman plans to send a videotape to the league offices illustrating his biggest complaints about the officiating in the first three games of the series against Seattle.
HONORING TROOPS: Several current and former NBA stars spent time Friday with troops recovering from their wounds. "Without them, where would we be?" Hall of Famer George Gervin said. He and others passed out T-shirts, caps and other merchandise, signed autographs and posed for pictures at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
