Miller old self in victory

This wasn’t how Reggie Miller imagined his farewell playoffs.

Miller scored 33 points Thursday night, his most in the postseason in three years, and Indiana pulled away to a 99-76 victory over Boston and a 2-1 lead in their best-of-7 first-round playoff series.

Game 4 will also be in Indianapolis on Saturday night, and the series will return to Boston on Tuesday.

“I’m trying to be aggressive. … I’m getting great picks from our big guys,” Miller said. “This is somewhat of an out-of-body experience. I’m not supposed to be doing it.”

Celtics coach Doc Rivers said earlier this week that Miller, who had 25 points on Monday night, may be getting “sympathy calls” from the officials as he makes his final NBA tour before retiring. The 39-year-old Pacers star had his usual flops, trying to draw fouls as he went up for shots, but it wasn’t his theatrics or the officials’ treatment that doomed the Celtics.

Miller hit his first two shots, a big 3-pointer that put Indiana in control in the first quarter and another 3 during a 17-3 run that broke open the game with less than 6 minutes to go.

Boston’s Antoine Walker was ejected with two technicals, both after hard personals on Jermaine O’Neal. The second time, with just more than 4 minutes to go, O’Neal also received a technical for shoving Walker, but stayed in the game and hit two more free throws for an 88-65 lead.

Mavericks 106, Rockets 102

Playing with the desperation of a team facing elimination, even though it wasn’t, Dallas clawed its way back into its first-round series against host Houston.

It took a rejuvenated Dirk Nowitzki to save the Mavericks. Nowitzki emerged from a two-game slump to score 28 points and keyed a 17-0 run in the fourth quarter that deflated the Rockets in Game 3.

Michael Finley scored 20 points, Jerry Stackhouse added 18 and Josh Howard had five big points in the late comeback, ending Houston’s nine-game win streak.

Heat 108, Nets 102 (2OT)

One of the luckiest bounces of Vince Carter’s career – five or six bounces, actually – couldn’t keep the New Jersey Nets from falling behind 3-0 to the Miami Heat.

Carter forced double overtime with a shot that danced all around the backboard and rim before dropping through, but there was no more magic for the Nets after that in a double-overtime loss to the Heat in East Rutherford, N.J.

Shaquille O’Neal had his best game of the series with 25 points and Udonis Haslem had the final go-ahead basket among his 14 for Miami.

Around the league

Forward Bobby Simmons of the Los Angeles Clippers was a runaway winner of the NBA Most Improved Player award. Simmons averaged career highs of 16.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.4 steals and 37.3 minutes in 75 games, including 74 starts. A year earlier, in his first season with the Clippers, he averaged 7.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 24.6 minutes in 56 games. … New Orleans hired NBA executive Paul Mott as the team’s new president, the latest of several top front-office changes.