A hot Rondo burns Cavs

So when they came back to Quicken Loans Arena last night, it made sense to use the same plan. Only this time, the basketball gods couldn’t stop laughing at it.

Scott didn’t account for Rondo having the hot hand. He scored 13 points in the first half, knocked down 7 of his first 12 shots, and finished with a game-high 23 points and 12 assists (along with 5 rebounds) in Boston’s 106-87 win.

As far as strategy goes, Celtics coach Doc Rivers didn’t knock Scott. In this instance, though, it backfired.

“That’s probably the right way,’’ Rivers said. “Obviously, what we want from Rondo, the points are good when he scores but doesn’t have 20 attempts. When he has the 14, 16, 18 points, low attempts, high assists, that means everybody’s involved and the ball is touching everybody’s hands.

“That’s what a lot of teams are trying to do. They try to get him to take a lot of shots. I thought early on we kind of fell into that a little bit, but we were active and we were effective with it. So when it works, it’s fine.’’

Rondo gladly took his 11-for-17 shooting night along with his eighth double-double of the year, feeling no shame about slipping out of his normal role.

“I don’t feel guilty,’’ he said. “I prefer the 2 [points] and 10 [assists]. I could care less about scoring the ball. But obviously teams are going to make me shoot it, try to make me score the ball. So I’m going to shoot the ball when I feel I have to or need to if it’s the best shot for me on the possession. But other than that I’m a pass-first point guard and I like keeping my teammates happy.’’

Scott had no choice but to swallow his Sharpie and clipboard.

“It’s difficult because the one thing you want to do is try to keep him out of the paint as much as possible, which is easier said than done, obviously,’’ Scott said. “You still want to stick to the things that you are trying to do on the defensive end, despite the fact that he’s trying to get to the basket. We just didn’t do a real good job of clogging the paint and forcing him to shoot contested jump shots. It kind of looked like layup drills.’’