Ray of light

Allen didn’t know that Wade was 0 for 6 at the time.

“It was great that Paul said that, because it does make me think more,’’ Allen said. “Defensively, it’s like, ‘Let’s not let him get into a rhythm.’ ’’

Thanks to Allen, Wade was in shackles all night. LeBron James (35 points) tried to beat the Celtics by himself, but for the second time in 16 days, Boston handled the Heat, 112-107, and never trailed in a virtual carbon copy of its season-opening win.

Allen couldn’t have done much more. He made his first seven 3-pointers, scored 35 points, and held Wade to 8 points on 2-of-12 shooting.

“It’s not easy,’’ said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. “Running around offensively and chasing Wade.’’

“We just kind of fed off it all night,’’ Pierce said. “We were getting him open and he just carried us.’’

Wade’s most agonizing miss was a clean look at a 24-foot 3-pointer that would have made it 106-102 with 3:33 left. Instead, it swirled around, almost taunting Wade before rimming out.

“Wade missed some good shots,’’ Rivers said. “We can’t bank on Wade missing that many good shots. He just had one of those nights and then Ray had one of those nights.

“Ray was unbelievable on both ends.’’

The Heat have lost four games, with the Celtics responsible for half of them.

“It’s Nov. 11,’’ said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. “We’re not there. We didn’t play well tonight.

“We have a different timeline and this is going to be a process and it won’t always be an easy one.’’

Miami had been holding teams to 41 percent shooting. Excluding a collapse Tuesday night against the Jazz, when they gave up 84 points after the first half in an overtime loss, they seemed to be building something defensively. Then the Celtics took sledgehammers to it, shooting 60 percent in the first half (compared with 44.7 percent in the first half of the season opener). On the other end, they forced Miami to miss 22 of its first 37 shots.