They say records are made to be broken. Well, in the Celtics’ case, one great one was tied Friday night.

Kevin Garnett helped lead his new team to a well earned 86-77 road victory over the Nets at East Rutherford Friday night. The Big Ticket’s double double (20 and 11) and superior D limited the Nets to only nine fourth quarter points in sparking his team to their 11th consecutive road win. Their last road defeat came back on Nov.18 to the Magic 104-102.

The bigger impact though was that the NBA’s best team improved to 30-4, matching the 1959-60 NBA champion Celtics for the fastest start in franchise history.

The reason the Boston trio of Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce are so cohesive is that they play hard at both ends. We caught a majority of their splendid final 12 minutes in which they outscored the Nets 23-9.

That the bench was able to score 13 straight to go ahead for good going up 76-70 without Garnett or Pierce even on the floor speaks to how well coached they are by Doc Rivers.

“The defense started the offense and we did a good job all around,” rookie big man Glen Davis told the AP after contributing seven points, four boards and a block off the bench in the big win.

“Our bench brought up the tempo in the fourth quarter and pumped up the energy. It was really big. Some nights, the big players are real factors and other nights, we have to step it up. Thats what the bench is for. We were able to get the lead with the other guys not on the floor. We stepped up at the right time.“

That bench comprised of Davis, James Posey, ex-Net long range specialist Eddie House and Tony Allen combined to outscore the Nets’ bench 27-17.

When you really break it down, the Celts were plus-10 here and won by nine. You do the math. That was the difference along with superior in your face man-to-man D that Knick fans could only dream of. Don’t worry. Lord Isiah still has a job!

I’ll be honest and say that I hadn’t caught much of these Celtics. But just watching the kind of defense they played in that fourth quarter against Jason Kidd, Vincesanity and RJ was phenomenal.

I had flipped between that and the anti-climatic conclusion of the latest Knicks’ loss. What a contrast. It was so refreshing to watch actual D being played. The Nets who had held their own with Boston for three quarters couldn’t get anything easy on the interior. Just one possession told the story as Antoine Wright was setup for a gimme but KG got over to block it leading directly to a two-on-zero break with Pierce finishing with a nifty reverse jam.

That’s what wins basketball games. Unselfishness and defense. A couple of words which aren’t in the Knicks’ vocabulary.

“It was a combination of their defense and our shots that we couldn’t make,” disappointed Nets coach Lawrence Frank later admitted. “There were a couple of poor possessions. We wore down. We exerted a lot of energy in the game.”

Even though the Nets fell short, Kidd still narrowly missed another triple double by an assist finishing with 11 points, 13 rebounds and nine dimes. You know everything was earned.

The Boston trio of Garnett, Pierce and Allen combined for 54 points on an efficient 21-of-39 shooting from the field with each making seven FG’s. That’s about as good as it gets. They also contributed 10 of Boston’s 18 assists and 23 of their 44 rebounds.

This boxscore is so good that I’m going to link it up for any hoops fan to examine:

Celtics-Nets 1/11/08 

It’s not often you learn as much from statistics as you would watching a game. But something significant can be gained from looking at what the Celts did last night.

Just don’t send it to 2 Penn Plaza.