Tom E. Curran • E-mail

BOSTON - You had to figure the Cleveland Cavaliers would get some mental bounce out of a win in Boston. You know, proof that they could actually stand up to the Celtics on the parquet floor.

Kinda makes you wonder what a loss does, no?

Outhustled and outmuscled by a Celtics team playing without Kevin Garnett, the Cavs not only blew a chance Friday night to put their foot on Boston’s throat in the race for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, they now have their inability to win in Boston rattling around their heads.

“We wanted this one real bad, I’m not gonna deny it,” said Cavs forward Wally Szczerbiak. “We felt like it was an opportunity to steal one and win the (regular-season) series.”

Instead, Cleveland left Boston chewing on its eighth consecutive Garden loss.

And while that’s a knife that cuts both ways — Boston hasn’t won in Cleveland in seven meetings — the manner in which the Cavs rolled over, losing 105-94, was a little astounding.

Especially in light of what was at stake. Before the game, Cavs superstar LeBron James went off the script set by coach Mike "It’s-just-another-regular-season-game" Brown and acknowledged the elephant in the room.

“If you look at last year’s stats, home court was the big thing,’’ James said. “We have to put ourselves in that position now. You see the standings every day to see how they’re doing. I’m sure they do the same with us. When you’re in the position we’re in this late in the year, you have to pay attention to that.’’

Especially since these two are at the top of the East in a virtual dead heat (Cleveland’s 48-13; Boston’s 49-14) and the Celtics were nearly unbeatable in Boston in the 2008 playoffs (13-1, 4-0 against the Cavs in the conference finals). So this was big. A checkpoint and an opportunity, especially with Garnett out.

James, asked about the absence of Garnett, shed no tears.

“It doesn’t change anything,’’ he said. "Nobody (felt sorry) for us when we didn’t have Z (Zydrunas Ilgauskas) or Delonte (West). (The Celtics) still have two all-stars, and nobody else in the league can really say that. If KG was playing, then we would hope that Ben (Wallace) was playing. We’re both missing our starting power forwards."

Hardly seems like Wallace’s 3.0 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24 minutes is comparable to the absence of the Celtics' best player, but even if it did, the alarming ease with which the C’s scrub frontcourt of Leon Powe, Glen "Big Baby" Davis and Kendrick Perkins overpowered the Cavs' front line was remarkable. Boston had 58 points in the paint. The Cavs had 22.

“Their two young guys, Leon and Big Baby, they were terrific tonight,” Brown said. “They were a handful for us, whether it was on the glass or in the paint. That was why they shot 55 percent from the field and had almost 60 points in the paint. A tough night for us down there.”

That assessment was amplified by the nasty takedown of Anderson Varejao by Davis in the third quarter. The head-collaring tackle resulted in a flagrant two foul, an ejection of the Baby and some requisite jamming after the play between Ray Allen and LeBron James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Davis.

It was 54-48 when the foul happened, and 2 minutes, 13 seconds later it was tied at 57. But from there, Cleveland went quiet. Boston scored 21 points in the final seven minutes of the third and the Cavs seemed to lose interest, never getting closer than seven points after that.

There is still a lot of basketball left. Too much to declare the race for home court over. But, going off of Cleveland’s performance in Boston in last year’s playoffs — LeBron’s in particular — the Cavaliers do not want to have their season come down to having to win a game in Boston.

After putting on a masonry exhibition in three of his four playoff games in Boston last year, James was 5 for 15 Friday night with six rebounds, five assists and four turnovers.

It was a poor performance. The kind Boston often forces him into.

“(We tried to) take away his easy transition buckets, not let him get any demoralizing dunks that really gets his team going,” Pierce said. “We feel like if we can challenge his shots, make him try to beat us from the outside, we’ll live with that.”

The Cavs, meanwhile, have to live with coming up short in Boston.

“It’s a loss,” shrugged Brown. “They’re still a good team with or without KG. It’s proven in their record without him. You have to give them credit, but I still feel we can win on anybody’s floor.”

But on a “prove-it” night, Cleveland couldn’t.

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