TODAY'S GAMES

Boston Marathon, Hopkinton to Prudential Center, 12 noon.

Texas vs. Red Sox at Fenway Park, 11 a.m.

YESTERDAY'S RESULTS:

NBA:

The Boston Celtics will open the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals Tuesday night at Boston Garden against the Philadelphia 76ers, who dumped Milwaukee, 99-98, in conference semi-final action yesterday. The Celtics will host the Sixers Wednesday night as well, and the series will shift to Philadelphia Friday for the first of two games there. Jullus Erving pumped home 28 points to pace Philadelphia, which blew a 16-point, second-half lead when the Bucks put on a 22-5 spurt to take a one-point lead with 9:09 left. But clutch foul-shooting by Caldwell Jones offset a Junior Bridgeman three-pointer in the final seconds and gave the 76ers the victory. In other conference semi-final action, the Kansas City Kings topped Phoenix, 95-88, to earn a seven-game victory and the right to face the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals.

NHL:

New York 6, St. Louis 3 (Rangers lead series, 2-1)

BASEBALL

Gary Allenson hit a three-run homer to lead the Red Sox to a 9-4 victory over Chicago yesterday in a game delayed an hour and a half by rain. In other baseball highlights: Andre Dawson's three hits helped Montreal defeat New York in the first game of a doubleheader, 4-3, but Dave Kingman's three-run homer in the nightcap propelled the Mets to a 7-2 victory in the nightcap.

LONGEST GAME:

The Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings participated in the longest game in organized baseball history Saturday night, an eight-hour, 32-inning affair that isn't over--it will be continued when the teams next meet in Pawtucket on June 23. Racking up 212 at bats the two teams struck out a total of 56 times, also an all-time record. Chico Walker, whose one-for-13 day could have been spread over a week-long slump, scored the two-out, ninth inning run that put the game into extra innings. When informed the game would be continued in June, he quipped. "Why wait? Everybody was ready."

Rochester catcher Dave Huppert probably wasn't ready, however, Huppert put in 31 innings behind the plate.

And Pawtucket's Luis Aponte went home shortly before 2 a.m. after hurling the seventh through tenth innings, only to be greeted by an incredulous wife.

"My wife said, 'where have you been?' and I said 'at the ballpark.' She said, 'you're lying,'" Aponte said. Aponte's wife's name is Xiomars.

Asked whether it was important to win the game after so much time and effort, Paw Sox manager Joe Morgan lifted his eyes from his starting lineup.

"I don't know," he said.