Celtics make the Heat second straight victims

The Celtics had recently been producing neither clutch offense nor late-game stifling defense before a 99-88 win at Washington Monday. This time, the Celtics followed the last-minute defending scheme, running the Heat off the 3-point line (with a couple of exceptions), and making Miami players shoot over a defender.

Wade (30 points, 13 assists) kept the Heat in contention after the Celtics (31-16) had built a 10-point advantage in the final quarter. Miami twice cut the deficit to 2, and had a chance to pull within 1 as Wade missed a banker with the Celtics leading, 97-94.

“That’s two games in a row, great fourth quarter D,’’ said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. “Honestly, it couldn’t have got . . . it had to get better. What were they shooting [62.5 percent] in the first half? You know, it’s funny, I told them at halftime, and it sounds crazy, I thought we were playing hard defensively. I really did. [But] Wade controlled the first half.’’

The Celtics countered by focusing on ball movement. Rajon Rondo (22 points, 14 assists) set the tone and Kevin Garnett (14 points, nine assists) took the passing mentality to absurd levels, once passing up a shot under the basket to find Ray Allen (23 points) for a short jumper.

“It was contagious,’’ Rondo said of the passing game. “It started when we first came out, first play of the game, you know, we moved the ball. When guys are moving the ball we’re a great team and we’re fun to watch, can’t give our guys enough credit. We shared the ball tonight and played very unselfish.’’

The Celtics started the final quarter with a 14-4 run over 5:24. A Glen Davis follow made it 79-74 with 9:42 left. Udonis Haslem’s 3-point play out of a timeout was countered by a Ray Allen 3-pointer. Then, Rasheed Wallace’s 15-footer answered a Wade free throw and Kendrick Perkins dunked off a Ray Allen feed and scored on a fast break for an 88-78 lead with 6:36 remaining.