After picking up his fourth foul early in the fourth quarter, Pierce held out a dismissive arm toward Rivers as if to say: “Relax.”

“I won’t foul out,” he mouthed.

But Rivers took him out, anyway.

And they didn’t need him.

Not anymore.

“Pierce got it started for them early,” Smith said. “Lately he hasn’t been getting himself involved in the offense early on, and that’s probably been the cause of him not doing well.”

The Celtics took a 58-43 halftime lead, holding Atlanta without a field goal for more than seven minutes before Horford’s putback dunk with 1:05 left in the second quarter. Pierce drove for a layup to start the second half, then Atlanta scored the next 11 points to pull within 60-54.

But Garnett made a turnaround hook shot, then he passed off to Allen to set up a 3-pointer. Pierce drove for another basket and, after Horford’s dunk slowed things down temporarily, Kendrick Perkins answered with a follow dunk that made it 69-56.

After a timeout, Garnett blocked Josh Childress and then Allen hit a 3. Allen threw the ball away and helped the Hawks cut the deficit to 12 points, but then he hit another 3-pointer to give Boston a 75-60 lead.

Notes: A half dozen members of the New England Patriots were in the crowd, as were Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner. The crowd broke into a few bars of “Sweet Caroline” after the scoreboard showed the Red Sox scoring the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth. ... Perkins, who was hit in the nose in Game 3, came out wearing a plastic mask over his eyes and nose. But he abandoned it in the first few minutes. ... When the teams started pushing late in the first half, Cassell stood in the corner, out of bounds, with one foot on each out of bounds line — making a big show of staying off the court.

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