BOSTON, Dec. 19 (Ticker) -- Antoine Walker scored 33 points and Paul Pierce added 25 as the Boston Celtics held off the Cleveland Cavaliers, 104-98, to avoid consecutive losses for the first time in nearly a month.

Walker rebounded from one of his worst games of the season with a solid all-around game. In a 99-83 loss in Philadelphia on Monday, Walker had 15 points but was just 6-of-23 from the field and 0-of-11 from 3-point range.

In this one, he shot 12-of-18 and added 10 rebounds and nine assists, just missing his 10th career triple-double.

"We were in a tough situation, Paul and Antoine," Cleveland guard Bryant Stith said. "Pick your poison. He (Walker) has a big shot and he's been doing that all season for them and that's something we have to live with."

Walker and Pierce combined for 58 points on 20-of-36 shooting as the Celtics shot a season-high 53 percent (39-of-74).

Walker's biggest shot was an uncontested 3-pointer with 45 seconds left that gave the Celtics a 102-96 lead and sealed their seventh consecutive home victory over the Cavaliers.

Cavaliers coach John Lucas decided to use 6-2 point guard Andre Miller against the 6-9 Walker at times. But it didn't matter who Lucas used as Walker drove to the hoop with very little difficulty.

"When you start a point guard on me, I can't do nothing else but go to the inside," Walker said. "I think that's their strategy and I just adjusted and went to the inside."

"We played good," Pierce added. "He really carried us today. He mixed it up inside a lot, didn't really take a lot of three-pointers. But that's Antoine. He's capable of carrying games like that. If he can pull out games like that for us on a more consistent basis then we're going to be really tough to beat."

Miller scored a career-high 36 points for Cleveland, which lost to Boston, 108-89, on opening night.

The Cavs were thoroughly dominated in the second and third quarters as they fell behind, 81-64. But they opened the fourth period with an 18-8 run that cut the deficit to 89-82 with 5:45 left.

"We looked for a combination of guys that could come out and play with the energy that we needed to get back in the game," Lucas said. "I thought that we began to get to the foul line and attack the basket to get the things we needed to do to help us get back into the game.

"When you're down by 19 or 20 points you've got to play perfect. When we were coming back, they stopped playing and we began to play with aggression that we needed to play with at the beginning. At the end, we looked like what they looked like in the beginning."

Cleveland shot 46.5 percent (20-of-43) in the second half but could not overcome its poor shooting in the first half. Overall, the Cavs shot 41 percent (35-of-85).

However, poor shot selection down the stretch hurt Cleveland.

With the Celtics leading 98-90 with 2:21 left, Jumaine Jones took a 3-pointer that was woefully short. Zydrunas Ilgauskas got the rebound, but his 3-point attempt also was short. He got his own rebound but missed an easy layup.

"Tonight was a big game," Walker said. "It's an important week for us before we go out west. We've got to take care of business at home. We understand that tonight we played very well for three quarters and then we let them back in the game."