Big bullies

“That’s what we’re stressing right now,’’ Pierce said. “When you’ve got a team on its back, when we’re up 15 points in the half, we didn’t want to give them any confidence in that third quarter.’’

Pierce made it his personal duty to drain the Bulls of any confidence.

He had been quiet in the first half, taking just five shots and missing four, but for the second straight game, he came up huge after the break. From the top of the key and from the wing, Pierce let the 3-pointers fly, drilling all five he took in the third quarter.

“As a scorer, when you make one or two in a row, you feel like you’re on fire,’’ Pierce said.

Altogether, he was a perfect 7 for 7 in the third, scoring 20 of the Celtics’ 38 points. By the start of the fourth, the Bulls were down, 88-61, and Pierce was resting on the bench with the other starters. His line for the night was 22 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals.

And the irony of it is that if you had asked Doc Rivers, Pierce wasn’t even the best player on the floor. On a night when Rajon Rondo took only two shots but came within one of matching his career high for assists, Rivers said, “He was the most dominant player on the floor.’’

With the Monday deadline for his contract extension looming, Rondo handed out 16 assists, and in the third quarter he had the helper on nine of the Celtics’ 15 field goals.

He found Pierce, who hit a 25-footer that made it 53-35 early in the third. He found him again midway through the quarter for a 26-footer that made it 72-42.

“He just kept finding me,’’ Pierce said.

The challenge of a marquee point guard matchup with Derrick Rose was once motivation for Rondo, but Rivers said that since the preseason, his point guard has been playing at a consistently high level every night.

“There was a time where he kind of picked and chose,’’ Rivers said. “If it was Rose, he was really up. [Now] he’s just been up. And he’s been that through practices . . . He’s just playing now. He’s not, ‘Oh, tonight we have Rose.’ It doesn’t matter the opponent. He’s just playing his game and doing it, being very solid.’’