Dwight Howard returned from his one-game suspension with 16 points and 22 rebounds and Orlando held off the late-charging Boston Celtics 95-90 in Game 1 on Monday night.

"The last 16 minutes was a debacle," Van Gundy said before quickly growing tired of questions about the Magic's near-collapse. "You guys get into the, 'Oh, great comeback.' How about the fact that we were up 28? You play these games to win, and that's it. We won. Right now, the series is 1-0."

Game 2 is Wednesday night in Boston.

Orlando led 65-37 early in the third quarter, but Boston trailed by four points when Ray Allen's 3-pointer rimmed out with 43 seconds left. J.J. Redick made two free throws with 14 seconds left before Paul Pierce's high 3-pointer made it a three-point game with 6.6 seconds to play.

But Redick made two more free throws to ice it.

"We got complacent as a team, stopped doing what we did to get the lead and against a good Celtics team you can't do that," Howard said. "You don't want to focus on them coming back. We still won the game and we saw what we have to do to win the series."

Pierce scored 16 of his 23 points in the second half and Rajon Rondo had 14 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.

Pierce said the Celtics never feel like they're out of a game, and there's a good reason why: They came back from 21 points down to beat New Jersey in the 2002 conference finals, and they rallied from a 24-deficit to beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 4 of last season's NBA finals.

"We can't wait until we're down 25, 26 points until we wake up," said Pierce, who is the only remaining Celtic to play in both those games. "There's no excuses for us not to be ready."

Kendrick Perkins had 16 rebounds for Boston, but Rondo and Allen both went 2 of 12 from the field. The Magic had a cold spell of their own in the fourth quarter, going just 5 of 20 from the field to lose most of a once-dominating lead that had the Boston fans booing their team off the court at halftime.

"If we had played the rest of the game like the second half ... ," said Glen "Big Baby" Davis, who scored 12 points before fouling out. "It's hard to play from behind. That's what we did and we lost."

Orlando finished off Philadelphia in six games on Thursday night, and Howard has been resting up even longer: He was suspended for the series finale for elbowing Sixers center Samuel Dalembert.

"It felt like I was out 10 games," Howard said. "I was a little rusty. We'll be ready for Game 2."

Rockets 100, Lakers 92

At Los Angeles, Yao Ming, who briefly left with a knee injury in the closing minutes, had 28 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Rockets in a physical Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

Ron Artest added 21 points and Aaron Brooks had 19 for the Rockets.

Kobe Bryant, who finished a distant second to LeBron James in NBA MVP voting announced earlier Monday, scored 32 points, doing his best to keep the Lakers in the game despite missing practice on Sunday with a sore throat.

Houston forward Shane Battier needed four stitches to close a gash over his left eye late in the first quarter. He returned and finished with six points.

Game 2 is Wednesday night in Los Angeles.