N.B.A. Playoffs - Heat Seem to Expect Bosh to Miss Game 4 BOSTON - One of the tedious but necessary questions that Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra fields before each game is listing the inactive players for that night's contest. Recently, he has listed Chris Bosh and someone else not nearly as important. If that is his response before Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals here on Sunday night - and all indications point to that - then the best-of-seven series between the Heat and the Celtics may start to get even more interesting. The Heat lead the series, two games to one. All three games have been played without Bosh, who is sidelined by an abdominal strain he sustained in Game 1 of the previous series against the Indiana Pacers. Spoelstra said Bosh would go through his "normal work" at the Heat's light practice session Saturday, but offered no definitive update other than to say, "I'm not thinking about Chris today." Bosh, whom Spoelstra called "our most important player" before Game 3, was not made available to reporters. Dwyane Wade and LeBron James talked as if Bosh would be unavailable. "When it happens, we're getting an All-Star player back," Wade said of Bosh. But we don't know when that's going to happen. Without Bosh, the Heat's smallish roster was overwhelmed in Game 3 as the Celtics repeatedly and successfully went inside to Kevin Garnett, something they had been talking about doing all series. The Celtics scored 58 points in the lane, their highest output in more than four years. Garnett responded with 24 points, almost all of them coming at or around the rim. He made only one trademark pick-and-pop jumper - and that came in the final minute. Spoelstra has employed a center-by-committee approach to guard Garnett, starting with Ronny Turiaf and then turning to Joel Anthony and Udonis Haslem. He even used James, a small forward, against Garnett in the fourth quarter. James said he expected more of the same Sunday. "It's just how our lives are being played right now," James said. When it comes to guarding Garnett, James added, "I just have to try to make it a little bit tougher on him." The Heat played and won without Bosh for almost all of the Indiana series and won the first two games of this series without him as well. The Celtics made no secret of their desire to go to Garnett early and often in Game 3, and they did just that. As Celtics Coach Doc Rivers put it: "Throw it up, Kevin will go get it. There's nobody taller than him on the floor. The Heat's Shane Battier said: "We've been undersized all year. It's nothing new. We know we're undersized. Garnett presents a different challenge because of his length and his agility. We have to give him some different looks. Doing a better job of defending Garnett is only a part of what the Heat need to take a 3-1 lead in the series. Last year in the conference semifinals against Boston, they won the first two games in Miami, were crushed in Game 3, then came back to win the next two games. Spoelstra said that series had "no relevance" to this one. He did not come out and say that his team played soft on Friday, but he said everything but that. "We have to be much sharper, much tougher," he said. In every area that has to do with toughness and effort, we lost. Spoelstra said he had no qualms with Miami's offense. The Heat scored 91 points and shot 49 percent (although they missed 10 of 20 free throws). He said his team played well offensively, "but defensively, it was as poor as we've been all playoffs." The Heat would also like to unleash Dwyane Wade, who scored 18 points but was really not a factor in Game 3. For the first time since his rookie season, Wade did not get to the free-throw line in a playoff game. He shot 17 in the first two games of the series. Wade had scored at least 20 points in his previous 12 playoff games against the Celtics, but he has struggled at times in the last two games as the Celtics have double-teamed him. In the first half of Game 2, he had 2 points. In the first half of Game 3, he had 6. Wade insists that he is healthy, despite lingering questions about a sore left knee that had to be drained of fluid before Game 3 of the Indiana series. He struggled at times against the Pacers, but he played a huge role in helping Miami rally from a 2-1 deficit in that series. Against the Pacers, James focusing on getting Wade more involved in the game, and he pledged to do the same Sunday night against the Celtics. "I know that D-Wade, once he gets a few easy buckets, he starts shooting his jumper and getting to the free-throw line," said James, who had 34 points in Game 3, including 16 in the first quarter. He's very aggressive from that point on. I had it going early on in Game 3, but I'm going to need his dominant play as well. So I am going to make an effort to get him going.