Q. I just wanted to ask you first of all about Tony Allen. How is he doing today?

Doc Rivers: He’s doing good. I haven’t talked to any extent to him or Eddie Lacerte yet. He was in this morning getting treatment, and we’ll find out tomorrow.

Q. When you look at the fourth quarter of last night’s game, are you concerned about getting a better finishing kick in Game 6?

Doc Rivers: Yeah. You know, I would like to have that same lead going into the fourth quarter in Game 6 first. We earned that lead. So I would like to get that first, and then once we got that, we clearly have to finish better.

Q. What in your estimation was the reason why you didn’t finish better?

Doc Rivers: Well, I thought, one, we turned the ball over; but more importantly, I thought our defense was a letdown, as well. They hadn’t been getting threes, besides Rasheed all game. They hadn’t been getting quick buckets or quick layups, and they did both during that stretch. I thought defensively we let down a little bit and offensively instead of running what we had been running to get the lead, we stopped attacking and we got kind of cautious, and you can’t do that in a playoff game; you can’t do that in any game.

Q. With relation to your rotation with the bigs, is that something that was a game-time gut decision, or was that something leading up to the game you saw that was going to be more beneficial for the team?

Doc Rivers: Leading up to the game. We talked about it — we actually do give these things thought (laughter). We meet as a staff and we talk about stuff before we go into games, and we just wanted to limit and shorten the rotation as much as we could. The key for us was trying to keep Kevin or Perk in when Rasheed was in. That’s basically what we were doing.

Q. Is that something that you were happy with the result of?

Doc Rivers: Oh, I was happy with the way Perk played, so yeah. Will we do that again? We may. But we did it for a specific reason.

Q. Obviously the Pistons have a sense of urgency because if they lose, they’re going home. How can you kind of get a sense of urgency for your team even though you have the cushion of a Game 7 back home?

Doc Rivers: Well, because we don’t want to go to a Game 7 (laughing) would be the number one thing. We want to win this now if we can. They’re not going to let us win it. We’re going to have to come in and take it. They’ve been in situations before. They’re a tough, mentally tough, team, and we’re going to have to play the game of our lives to go up there and win, but I think we’re capable of doing that.

Q. I want to go back to a comment you made a couple minutes ago. You said, “We actually do give these things some thought,” referencing the rotation of the big guys, which makes we wonder if you’ve heard or read any of the criticism about your coaching style this year and last year, and if you ever want to tell people to kiss off.

Doc Rivers: Well, I would love to, but I just don’t think that would be the right thing to do (laughing), I’ll put it that way. I like what we’ve done. Obviously it hasn’t affected me because I clearly do — I coach the way I coach, and I’m not going to let — I’ve always laughed at some of the criticism.

I was joking with someone the other day, and I told them, just answer me this: Why would someone listen to a guy that hasn’t played, hasn’t coached? Some of the guys have never even been reporters; they’re bloggers. And not listen to a guy in his own staff who his played and coached. Who’s the fool, me or the people listening to him?

Q. Would you agree that it’s not as simple as, well, we’ve got good players now, because most people agree that Terry Francona’s talent is he can manage a team with lots of superstars and keep the divisiveness out of the locker room. Wouldn’t you say it’s also difficult to coach good players?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, I would say this year as far as that goes, it’s been easier actually in some ways than in the past. I’ve always thought the toughest part for coaches, and that’s probably why very few coaches, or none would be the number, are successful when you’re all young and rebuilding is because everyone is pretty much equal. So that’s the tough part in your locker room in those situations.

Last year and the year before that were very difficult because everyone is equal. It’s tough to sell to a guy, why is he playing and not me, and we’re still losing, where this year is pretty easy. You look at our record, who can complain in our locker room. Everybody kind of — when you bring in Kevin, Paul and Ray, roles are pretty much filled out with these. Now, you’ve got to get everybody to buy into the same boat and no individual agendas, but the more talent you have, it does become a little bit easier as far as guys accepting their rotation and their roles, where with young guys, you see it league-wide, and it never changes; it’s almost impossible.

Q. Speaking of fools or others, you know, some think Flip Saunders might be in trouble if the Pistons don’t get out of this series, and I know you don’t necessarily have sympathy for him, but can you just talk about the coaching job he’s done in this series and over his three years in Detroit?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, I think he’s a great coach. I think he’s one of the best coaches in our league. I haven’t heard that talk. Honestly I haven’t read much or looked at much, so I didn’t know that was even out there. But that would be a shame; that’s all I can say. I’m just going to focus on me and our job right now, so I’m not thinking about that, to be honest. But I can speak for Flip as a coach all day.

Q. You’re playing on the road for Game 6 and at home for Game 7. Do you feel like you’ve been here before?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, we have. We have a chance to end it. But you know, we’re playing good teams, and good teams in their place, and they’re tough to play. We just have to come in and have great focus and play. We can’t worry about if we win or if we lose. We have to just focus on the game and just stay there.

Q. Related to an earlier question about coaches, the Lapchick study just came out today and it indicated — it gave the NBA some laudable marks for its diversity with 12 coaches in the league, but now you’ve seen some of that eroded a bit where there’s only nine African-American coaches after the loss of Avery Johnson and Isiah obviously have lost their jobs. How do you feel about the marks that the NBA has gotten in terms of its diversity?

Doc Rivers: I think they’ve been terrific. I’ve always said since I’ve been in the league as a player, when you want to win, color doesn’t really come into play. I think our league understands that as much as anything. We have GMs, we have minority owners, in ownership groups, coaches, obviously assistant coaches. I just think through the league office, I just think it’s been great, and not only about blacks but with women, as well. I just think our league has done a terrific job of hiring the best person, and I think that’s what we have to continue to do.

Q. You guys have — like last year you have the lead and have stopped doing your stuff in the fourth quarter. How do you deal with that? Again, you’ve got a lead going into Game 6 for the third time.

Doc Rivers: Well, you just keep talking about it. You keep showing them on film what we did right and what we did wrong, and then you try to correct it. But you’ve been around the game long enough. It comes down to mentality. You can’t hold onto a game. You have to secure it and go get it. That’s basically what I was saying in a time-out. We can’t wait and think that the time is going to expire. We have to go play. We have to play through the game. When you get a 10-point lead, you can’t have the mentality of thinking, let’s win by ten. You’ve got to think if we’ve got it to 10, we can get it to 20 and let’s get it there. That’s how we’ve play, and I don’t think we’ve done it twice already in this series.

Give them credit; they’ve pressured, they’ve trapped, and we’ve succumbed to it a little bit. We have to be stronger with the ball and make better decisions.

Q. Last night you went — you said after the game that — you told Rajon Rondo he wasn’t coming out somewhere to a game in the Cleveland series, Kendrick played about 40 minutes. Are we late enough in the season where you can go to the well on that a few times, or is that something you can do once and then you have to ease up on it?

Doc Rivers: No, you can do it more in the playoffs obviously because you have the day in between of rest and you’re not really going hard in practices now, it’s more adjustments. So you clearly can do it.

As I told you before, the only guy I really have concern doing it multiple times would be Kevin because the energy level that he plays at. Other than that, I think any of our other guys can handle it. Kevin would be the one guy that if I did it two games in a row, I would be concerned.

Q. Just wondering, I know you guys have been showing them film from Muhammad Ali fights and the theme is “Keep going forward.” Does that relate at all to these fourth quarters, where you guys are kind of like maybe being a little tentative or cautious, as you said, and is this what you’d like to see them do, keep going, straight ahead?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, it’s related to the fourth quarters but it’s more just related to us as a group and as a team, and the mental mindset actually that you have to have in the playoffs. You’re obviously going to hit some in the playoffs, but you’re going to get hit and you’re going to get hit hard, and the key is how many times can you get hit and still move forward. That’s basically the real theme of it is how many times can you get hit and keep moving forward, and that’s what champions are made of and that’s what we talk about.

Q. Just following up, have you showed them a Hagler or Hearns fight?

Doc Rivers: No, because they quit too early. It was three rounds (laughing).

Q. But they were haymakers?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, they were haymakers.

I think the best one for me obviously, and guys who know me know I love fights and I love Ali, is the Forman fight where he took the punishment for eight rounds and then got off the ropes obviously. And then the Thrilla in Manila, you don’t even have to use words. Just show the fight. That to me is the greatest fight of all time, where two men basically took a brutal punishment, and Ali was the guy who stood up, and that’s why he was the greatest champ.

That’s my preview for the day, guys. Thank you

Q. Flip, rebounding has been an issue throughout this series, but it really, really crushed you guys tonight. Talk about that.

Flip Saunders: We got beat off some penetration on the top, which used up our bigs. Perkins was great on the glass. We withstood a little bit the last game just because of McDyess, but what’s happened is they’ve broken us down on the perimeter a few times and we’ve had to use that, or Garnett is playing outside a lot and we’re having to rotate to him because he’s knocking down shots, and our big is rotating to big. We’re trying to get the ball out of their guards’ hand, Pierce’s hands, and we’ve got two bigs on the perimeter.

Perkins is eating us up. The games that they’ve won, he’s had big games. He’s played well for them as far as on the glass. Tonight was a game where Perkins played well, Rondo did a great job assist-wise, Allen had his best game and Garnett was great tonight. So they had four guys that played at a high level.

Q. Just talk about just not being able to get over the hump in the fourth quarter, and also the position that you guys are in now.

Flip Saunders: Well, not getting up over the hump is — we buried ourselves a little bit — when you get beat on the boards like we did, it’s going to take a toll on you, and I think it did a little bit. One, it cost us some — McDyess, as far as in foul trouble for a lot of the game. We weren’t able to match McDyess up on Garnett. KG had a monster game as far as tonight.

But I told our guys after the game I was proud of them. We’re not going away. They had guys that played a heck of a game. They got three points off their bench. We struggled at times rebounding-wise and we still had opportunities down the stretch.

So we got to do what we do. We’ve got to go back home and play with the same intensity we did tonight, and play there and then come back here as far as our main focus.

But we didn’t rebound, but we did a lot of other good things to put ourselves in position to be in the game. That was the surprising thing, that we were in the game at the end. I’m sure everybody was surprised.

Q. Talk about your decision with about five minutes to go. You took Lindsey out at that time and brought Chauncey in. It wasn’t popular with your players at the time. They seemed to protest that, but obviously Chauncey went and did what he did down the stretch. Talk about the mindset.

Flip Saunders: All the decisions I make aren’t popular, media, players, whatever it is. Chauncey, he can make big shots. Lindsey did a great job for us and got us in that position, and I wasn’t going to hesitate to go back with him defending as far as in that situation. But I thought that we had some scattering offensive sequences in there, and I thought we needed to make sure that we had a guy that runs our show. Even though we put the ball in Stuckey’s hands, Chauncey played a little bit off the ball. When he got it he can make plays. He came in and hit a big three right away, made some big shots.

What I love about Lindsey is that he played a hell of a game for us tonight and he wants to play. That’s what you want. But as a coach you’ve got to make decisions that you hope are going to help and pay off. Chauncey made some plays. Lindsey put us in a position for us to make those plays.

Q. One of the things Paul said happened in the last game was that you guys pushed them around and they wanted to push back. Did you feel that intensity a little bit?

Flip Saunders: I think both teams played hard tonight and both teams were extremely physical. Like I said, I thought Perkins did an outstanding job taking up the gap and getting on the glass. But I don’t know if — I think we played the same way we played last game. I don’t think there was much difference.

Q. Could you talk a little bit more about Ray Allen and just concerns you guys have. He was looking like the Ray that we’ve seen for years tonight.

Flip Saunders: He hit some big shots. He got things going early, got his confidence going. Maybe it was the new sleeve he put on, it might have helped him. He was wearing an elbow sleeve that evidently got something going. But he didn’t hesitate. I think the previous times we played he had a little bit more hesitation in shooting. He was not hesitating tonight and letting it go. I thought their bigs set some pretty good screens to get him open, and he got his confidence going.

As I said from the beginning, we’ve got to guard him. Even when he’s out on the floor, no matter how many shots he’s missed, you’ve still got to guard him against the next one because he’s too good a shooter.

Q. Just give us an update on what you know what Richard did to his hand.

Flip Saunders: Rip strained a right elbow. It’s sore a little bit. We’re going to have to wait and see how it is tomorrow and how it is in 48 hours. He got a little bit of, I think, hyperextended in there on the rebound on that one defensive sequence that we had. He was great again tonight, especially in the last three quarters. Hopefully he’s going to be ready to go for us.

Q. Just want to talk about the rebounding tonight. That seemed to be the biggest factor in this game tonight.

Doc Rivers: Yeah, we talked about it before the game. They destroyed us last game. McDyess had seven offensive rebounds on his own. Coming into this series, that was the number two things that we felt we had to do to win this series. Number one was pressure, ball pressure.

So we talked about it, and Perk went out and did it, and I thought that freed everyone else. He was sensational tonight, played with great energy. That’s three games in a row that Kendrick Perkins has been absolutely phenomenal. No one saw it the last game because we lost it, but he was fantastic in that game, as well, with his energy. It was just good. The rebounding was huge for us tonight.

Offensively I thought we were good, as well, shooting 51 percent. You know, you should win games, and we did. We made it interesting (laughter).

Q. Did you know that Ray had one of these in him, or did you basically just know this was going to happen at some point?

Doc Rivers: I knew he had one in him. He’s a great player. He hasn’t stopped being. He just hadn’t played well in a while. It didn’t bother me. It didn’t stop me from running things for him still. My belief was he needed two or three in a row instead of one. Everyone kept saying he needs one. I thought he needed two or three to get him going. He got it going, we came out of time-outs and got him some other shots. Kevin got tired in the third and we had to take him out, and getting Ray going was huge for us, and it was huge for Ray.

Q. Can you just talk about your decision to stick mostly with the starters. And were you thinking that your team got tired in the fourth and maybe that’s why they lost part of the lead?

Doc Rivers: No, I don’t think we got tired (laughing). We just had some bad turnovers. We’ve got to get the ball in Rondo’s hand and the point guard’s hand, him making decisions. His hook passes were not some of my favorites, as well. I made the decision before the game to shorten the bigs’ rotation as far as Perk, PJ and Kevin. I just thought it was tighter that way.

I wanted either Perk or Kevin to always be on Rasheed for the most part. Unfortunately he didn’t go to the post, he ran out to the three and made some shots, so that was his adjustments obviously.

You know, in the second half I told Rondo at halftime that he was not coming out, but don’t play and worry about fouls, just play his game. And then with Paul, Pose — I wanted a tighter rotation tonight.

Q. Just talk about the position you’re in now, one away and two games to do it.

Doc Rivers: Well, we hope we don’t think like that, with two games to do it. We’ve just got to think about the next game. We’ve got to have a great focus and a great intensity there. You know, they’ve won titles, they’ve been in this position before. We just have to go in there and play our game. That’s the whole key. Whatever happens, happens. But we’ve got to make sure we play our game. We can’t get caught up in anything that they’re doing. I thought that was important tonight. We talked about it a lot yesterday and a lot today. They were grabbing and bumping and holding last game and it affected us, and tonight they were grabbing and bumping and holding and it didn’t affect us. We kept playing. We played through it. We caught the ball when we should have caught the ball. I thought the only point where it did affect us was down the stretch when we were not aggressive anymore and we were trying to hold onto the lead again, and that’s the second time we’ve done that instead of running through the game.

Q. Can you talk about the importance of shutting down McDyess tonight.

Doc Rivers: The one thing we wanted to do was attack him on the other end. He’s been fresh. He’s been fresh to rebound, he’s made shots, and so we wanted to really attack him on the other end and make him defend a little bit, which we felt hopefully can get him in foul trouble or at least get him tired.

The second thing was to make him make shots off the dribble, no catch and shoot. We talked about it, no catch-and-shoot jump shots. If he puts it on the floor and makes a shot and you fly by, they’re going to be mad at me because they don’t want him to score. But I told them I’d live with that, I just didn’t want him catch-and-shoot shots.

Q. Flip reiterated what you’ve said, just having Ray on the floor means he has to be covered. But he also said the one thing he noticed was he wasn’t tentative today. He’s been tentative for most of the series. Obviously you’ve been telling him to shoot, but what did you see different today.

Doc Rivers: Nothing really. I didn’t know. You just don’t know going into games. You just know he’s a good player, and you keep believing that, and you know eventually — I kept saying, I’ve been saying it throughout eventually, something was going to break for him. When he made the two shots in a row, I thought he’s good tonight, so we just kept trying to get the ball in his hands.

This has been a tough stretch for Ray, and I give him a ton of credit. Number one, I thought this was his best defensive night, and to me that’s more important. Number two, he never changed his routine, he never did anything different. He kept working on his game, he kept believing every day, and that’s probably why he’s been so great through his career, because he believes. Hell, if that had been me, I’d have been a basket case as a player. Most players would have been. But that’s the difference between the good ones and the great ones.

Q. Rasheed Wallace just talked in the locker room that with the fouls it’s not basketball, it’s entertainment. Did you want to be physical enough with them to kind of get under their skin? Talk about putting pressure on them.

Doc Rivers: We were fouling a lot? No, we wanted to be physical, but we were just playing just like them. I’m glad I’m not an official because it’s very physical out there, and they had Flip yelling at them. I never yell (laughter).

But we’re both yelling, it’s just a physical game. It’s very tough to call. But it’s both teams. I don’t think it’s any one team playing any more physical than the other. I thought both teams wanted the game badly tonight, and you could see it in both teams’ play.

Q. Just talk about where you guys are at right now, the task ahead. You’ve obviously been in this situation where you’ve had to win a six and a seven to advance. The fourth quarter run fire you up for it, wear you out?

Chauncey Billups: No, we’re obviously in a must-win situation. The good thing about it is we’re going home. We’ll be in front of our fans. You know, we’ve been here before. We’ve been here before, and we don’t like being in this position, but we’ve fought hard. We’ve fought really hard in this game, and we’ll be definitely ready for Friday’s game.

Q. Talk about what happened in the third quarter. How did that get away from you so quickly there as a team?

Chauncey Billups: It was obviously our worst quarter of basketball tonight. They got out on the open floor, some long rebounds, a couple turnovers. They got on the open floor and started hitting guys for threes, just wide-open threes. When you give a team that shoots the ball this well wide-open looks, no matter if they’re struggling or not, that’s a good way to get the ball rolling.

We made the mistake of giving them those kind of opportunities. We hadn’t done that before this game. We hadn’t given them too many opportunities, free looks at the basket, and today we had a tough quarter and they got it going. Ray Allen got it going, he got some looks. He’s the kind of player when he gets good looks and he makes them, now it’s easy to make those tough shots. That’s a bad quarter by us, but we fought back and made it a game, and it could have went either way in the last minute.

Q. Obviously there are no moral victories and you lost, but do you take anything out of it? You beat them here in Game 2, a second game, you came real close to winning two games here. Can you take that if there is a Game 7 and apply that?

Chauncey Billups: We can’t worry about if there’s a Game 7, we have to worry about Game 6. It’s at our place. It sounds kind of cliché, but as you see through the course of the game and any of these games, the most aggressive team is successful. They were aggressive in that third quarter, had a big quarter, and we were aggressive, extremely aggressive, in that fourth quarter, and the ball kind of started bouncing our way a little bit.

We know that, we’ve got to come out with some fire, and I know we will at home and just be extremely aggressive on both ends.

Q. You were tackled by Paul Pierce at one point, you were on the ground a lot, took a lot of hits, yet you had your biggest offensive output. Do you feel this was a breakthrough game in terms of fighting through the injury?

Chauncey Billups: Like I was telling somebody earlier, this is probably the best I’ve felt — I felt really good in Game 2 before I tweaked it, and coming into this game, this is the best I’ve felt as far as moving-wise and being able to explode and get that step by people. This is the best I’ve felt, and hopefully I continue to get better, and at worst just feel the same, feel good about it.

Q. Some of the things that you heard coming into this series over Boston, like they hadn’t won on the road before or tight things in the fourth quarter they’ve now done. What are you hoping to rely on in Game 6 given the Pistons’ experience and everything that they’ve done to try to win that game that perhaps the Celtics haven’t done yet?

Chauncey Billups: Well, I think just that. I mean, our experience and our being in this for so long and being in so many tough situations, and us being at home helps. Those are the kind of things that you’ve got to kind of lean on and rely on those kind of situations when you’re facing elimination, especially against a tough team. We’re going to come out and we’re going to fight and we’re going to scratch and we’re going to claw and do the things that we’ve been known to do and try to get back here for Game 7.

Q. Can both of you guys talk about the significance of getting Game 5 once again?

Paul Pierce: It’s a huge game. I mean, we don’t get this game, we put ourselves in position to have to win another road game. We know how tough it is to win out there in Detroit. It’s one of the biggest games that we played all year long. A crucial game at home, get the lead just to get some momentum, get the momentum back, and we knew it was going to be one of the toughest games of the series. We said that coming into it, that this is like a Game 7, and we responded. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

Kevin Garnett: What Paul said. We knew the significance of this game. You don’t win this game, you put basically yourself in a corner. I thought we had good focus, good energy to begin with. I thought third quarter was big for us. We came out with a lot of energy. They made a run probably, I think, the late third and first part of the fourth, but for the most part you know they’re going to make a run. You know they’re experienced, and they’ve been in a lot of pressure situations. Now it’s up to us to go up there and try to get one.

Q. Ray had a tremendous game tonight and hit those two big free throws at the end. Could you both talk about him and why coming up big in this game, what it’s going to do for him?

Paul Pierce: You know, Ray is going to continue to be Ray, regardless of how he shoots. Just his presence on the floor alone is a great help. Tonight he just happened to have it really, really going. He was real aggressive pretty much throughout the game, and we’re going to need that from him. If he plays like that, it’s tough to beat us. Him, Perkins, everybody brought their “A” game tonight, and that’s the reason why, because we needed it. If we don’t get the efforts from a number of people, we don’t walk out of here with a win tonight.

Kevin Garnett: Ray is one of the big reasons why we’re in position to do a lot of things this year. Both of us are happy for him because he was in a slump, and we kept motivating him, talking to him, and letting him know from a big standpoint trying to get him open and trying to get him some open looks and some easier looks.
Like Paul said, I think he’s doing a really good job of being aggressive and just being a three-point shooter. I think he’s definitely coming out of being one dimensional. He’s putting the ball on the floor, making plays. To add onto what Paul says, when he’s playing like that, we’re a tough team. I thought the ball moved from strong side to weak side tonight, and he was a big part of that.

Q. When you have conversations with him, veteran to veteran, what do you say to him in these past few weeks?

Kevin Garnett: I can’t repeat that here. Too many cuss words (laughter).

Q. Can you do the clean parts?

Kevin Garnett: I don’t have a clean version. The explicit version gets right to it. “Hey, beep, beep. Shoot the beep, beep.” Right, Paul? “Beep.” It goes something like that (laughter).

Q. Can you guys talk about how nerve wracking the fourth quarter was and being able to hold onto the victory.

Paul Pierce: Man, it was the longest fourth quarter out of all the games we played in. I was a little disappointed the way we played the fourth quarter, so I thought throughout the game we played well, but the fourth quarter is something we’re going to have to go back and look at because if we get ourselves in this position again in Detroit, we’ve got to be able to close the game out a little bit better than we did tonight. Having a 13-point lead we knew they were going to be aggressive. Thinking about having the lead in the fourth quarter we’ve got to continue to be aggressive. I thought it was a little passive when they put out the traps, but you’ve got to understand, hey, that’s the playoffs and it’s not going to be easy. We’ve got to be a little bit more aggressive in the fourth than we were. I thought we just kind of let the time pass away and hoping that we were going to win the game. But we’ve got to put forth a better effort and better execution in the fourth.

Q. I just wanted to ask you about the two trips you took to the foul line, one was in the first half when you were down six points, and those two free throws seemed to spark that 16-1 run that you had at the end of the first half and then the last two. Can you talk about what’s going on in your mind in each of those instances, especially the last two.

Kevin Garnett: You take free throws at the end of the game, you want to be poised, you want to be calm, you go through your ritual, how you shoot free throws and you let it go. More or less than that, you don’t put any added pressure, you don’t think about if you miss or make it, shoot it up, go through another one. You go through your little ritual and that’s what it is.

I thought tonight everybody was aggressive, and we’ve got to — like Paul said, we’ve got to finish four quarters off and look a lot better. But you know Flip, he’s very scheming, throw different things out and try to pick the pressure up, but that’s what it is, man. Free throw is a part of the game, and I’m just trying to be as calm as possible. I thought, first half, man, free throws are free, so you think that you’re out there and it’s automatic, but sometimes it’s not. So I was just trying to be real poised.

Q. Just how much of the fourth quarter was fatigue? The starters played a lot tonight. How tired were you?

Paul Pierce: I didn’t really think about how tired I was. The only thing on my mind is getting a win, getting a step closer to being in the NBA Finals. I don’t think fatigue is going to be a factor for the rest of this series.

The guys physically for the most part are feeling good, and it’s all about mental toughness right now

Q. Ray, Doc talked a little bit about how even when you were having some offensive struggles in the series, you tried to make up with the defensive ball movement, but it really went hand in hand. How did you try to orchestrate those two over the last few games in terms of being physical with Rip Hamilton and moving the ball? And did that translate to your offense tonight?

Ray Allen: Well, clearly throughout the season, the one thing that I learned about me on this team is that I don’t need to score. Scoring is going to help the team, but we have so many options on this team that making the team better in small little ways, where I had to learn — become more efficient with my scoring. Over my career I’ve taken a lot of shots, and I think coming into this playoff series, my shots have been very limited, you know, you’re talking six to ten shots a game, and not worried about affecting the offense or being a great part of the offense. I knew being on the floor I had to have an impact, make my teammates better in whatever small ways possible.

If I wasn’t shooting the ball tonight, I didn’t want to be sitting on the defensive end. I wanted to make sure that I made defensive plays and trying to make these guys better.

Q. Ray, even when you’re not playing well, do you find your routine and the way you work every day, is there some kind of comfort or kind of order that you feel like kind of brings you back to your game by doing the same thing every day, whether you’re playing well or not playing well?

Ray Allen: Most definitely, that’s what levels me. When I can go into my own world and shoot the shots that I know, when I’m in the gym by myself and somebody is rebounding for me, there’s no defender on me, I can work on the things that I need to work on and I can get my mind right towards the things that I need to do offensively and just get a good workout in and get a great rhythm.

For me every game is a new journey, it’s a new adventure for me. At any point, at any previous game going to the next game, going on the floor before my game and get my shots up, every day I’m working on trying to think about where I had the last shot I missed and getting my legs right and being explosive and just thinking about it and having an opportunity to get better. So those are my moments, and those are the moments that I enjoy.

Q. Kendrick, it was important for the Celtics to come out strong tonight, and you did. You had that look in your eye. You even dribbled the ball down the court once. Can you just talk about what your mindset was going into the game?

Kendrick Perkins: Well, I was just coming in and thought I was going to provide energy for the team. I said I was going to be aggressive offensively. I just said I was going to play with a lot of energy. I knew our Big Three veteran guys, I know this opportunity don’t come much, and I knew if I was up in age, up in my 30s, and a young fellow was right there I’d want him to go all out for me, too. My thing is I’m going to leave it out there on the court, for myself, for my teammates and for everybody.

Q. Ray, you’ve contributed to so many of these games with your defense. What does it feel like to contribute tonight with the shot making and the things that you were able to do, especially down the stretch making those key free throws and just making those shots?

Ray Allen: If I can go back a couple games, I think it was Atlanta when I had two free throws in the fourth quarter, and I hadn’t really shot the ball. I was sitting on the bench going into the fourth quarter, and just being in that situation where you know everybody is looking at you, and they’re like, well, he’s statistically one of the best free throw shooters on the team, he’s got to make these free throws.

In this situation as a team, we’re pretty fairly new. Detroit has been doing this a couple, four, five, six times, I don’t know how many, being in the Conference Finals. So we’re learning a lot about each other and we’re learning the most important thing to do is win games, and that’s taking care of and closing out quarters. My feeling now is no different from if I had scored ten points and we still won the game. It’s a great feeling because the joy on everybody’s face, we know how hard we worked every day, the day before, and then the mornings of the game and then coming to the game, the film session, there’s so much that goes into it. I always say people don’t realize — when people see the game come on TV, they think that’s it. But this is a day and a half process going into the game before this.

So just winning gives me the greatest joy regardless of what I’ve done because that ultimately was good enough for me, whatever I did tonight, for this team to win.

Q. I just want to repeat what KG said about conversations he had with you the last couple days, couple weeks. He said he doesn’t have a clean version. He said it’s hey, beep, beep, shoot the beep, beep, when he talks to you. What does he do to try to get you psyched up or ready to play?

Ray Allen: Well, you all know he’s so intense. He’s going to bring the intensity. He’s going to make sure that he lights a fire under everybody’s butt when they’re out there on the floor. You take a shot, and you feel like I shot the shot I wanted to shoot, he’s going to come over and say, “shoot the ball.” You always know he’s got your back, regardless of what’s going on out there. You can sense at times when guys are down, and he’s been one of the guys that’s always encouraging to everybody on the team, regardless of what’s happened, because I think we have grown to the point now where we’re more than just a team, we’ve become brothers. And the things, the small little things don’t affect us anymore.

I think we learned early in the season where you’ve got to learn everybody’s personality. So now you’re at the point where you understand each individual, you know where they’re coming from, you know how they talk, what they eat, the things they do, the nuances, everything.

Now I think that we’ve grown to love each other as men.

Q. Flip said coming into this game, Ray Allen the shooter was a little tentative, and he said, tonight there really weren’t open looks, you were looking. Was that the case? And did you feel, as Doc said, it wasn’t one, he said, I need two out of him and then he’s got it? Can you talk about that.

Ray Allen: Yeah, there’s a flow that’s created out there during the game, and it really depends on all of us, where we move the ball and everybody gets easy looks. I told Rondo a couple of minutes ago that my first two threes in the first half came because we got the rebound and pushed it up ahead, and I was able to get two threes off. And I said, when we run, the more we run as a team, the more I score. Defense is out of place, and we shoot over the top, the bigs run, we get easy lay-ups. So it does make it easier for me when we run and we move the ball. I get easier looks, but at the same time, I’ve been trying to drive the ball more over the past couple of games.

Q. After you established the third quarter, a nice lead, how did you survive the fourth? And what happened, and ultimately how did you survive to get the win?

Kendrick Perkins: Well, Doc has been showing us the fights, the Ali fights. He always says, it’s not how many times you get hit, it’s if you keep moving forward. Going into this game knowing we wanted to blow Detroit out. That’s what it is. They’ve been here numerous times, so we just kept fighting. We were taking hits and we kept fighting through and we kept moving forward. We got a good lead. They fought back but we didn’t give up on each other, and we played through everything.

Q. The last shot you made from the field, obviously things were getting fairly tense at that point. Did you think you were behind the line? And could you just go through the process that led up to that shot.

Ray Allen: Well, the play actually was for me to run off, run to the corner where Pose was taking the ball out, and then KG was going to come back down and set a screen on me. And I was popping back and then Kevin was going to dive into the basket. It was up to Pose to throw whichever way he thought one of us was open.

When I came off the first one and I felt Rip on the screen, and Kevin must have got a good piece of him. But when I got to that spot he threw it to me, so I assumed he threw it because I was open. I didn’t think about getting behind the three. I knew I was right there and I wasn’t going to worry about the three-point line, but just go for the shot and not worry about it. That was just one of those basketball reads. Posey made a play, and it was time for me to put the shot up.

Q. Is Tony Allen dressing tonight? And if not, who’s replacing him on the active roster?

Doc Rivers: These deep, penetrating questions. No, he’s not dressing tonight. He got injured, I guess, in the one-on-one games yesterday. So Scalabrine.

Q. How does that affect you?

Doc Rivers: It doesn’t. It hasn’t yet.

Q. Flip alluded to three-point shots. Are you at all surprised at the fact that it has had almost no role in the series, the way teams have defended it, and even looking for it the way they would in the normal season?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, I think they’re looking for it. I think both teams, really throughout the playoffs, the three-point shot percentages are down for the most part. I think it’s better defenses. I think guys are really focusing on running you off the three-point shot and making you take contested twos or just twos. Since the invention of the three-point line, that game called the “in-between game” has disappeared. And defensively, I think me as a coach and Flip and a lot of the coaches have forced the in-between game.

A lot of guys like threes and going all the way to the basket, and very few want to stop and take that in-between jump shot. The great ones do, Kobe and Paul and those guys, that’s what they score on. So I think it’s more of a focus defensively.

Q. Have you ever seen anything that odd happen to a player twice?

Doc Rivers: As far as the injury? No, not really, not in a playoff game. In the regular season there’s been all kinds of strange injuries. But not in a playoff game. And we didn’t know literally until an hour ago. I didn’t know he was injured yesterday, so I didn’t know until about an hour and a half ago.

Q. What was the focus on shootaround today? Any particular thing?

Doc Rivers: No, just preparing for the game. Nothing different than we’ve done throughout the series. No great changes are coming or anything like that. We’re going to be who we are and they’re going to do the same, and we’re going to go out and play.

Q. The number of threes in the series has really gone down, what do you attribute to that?

Doc Rivers: Just better defenses. We talked about it earlier, but I just think it’s the focus of defense throughout, not only just us but everyone.

Q. I don’t want to get too far afield, but is there the slightest possibility that this could carry over, either on behalf of you or anyone else, watching when the 2008 and 2009 season started that guys won’t be left as alone as they usually are, noted three-point shooters during the course of the season?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, it could be. We hope they are (laughing). But it is easier in the playoffs in some ways defensively because you’re playing the same opponent, you know, you have more time to prep, so you can find where they’re putting the three-point shooters, the space part, and get to them, where during the regular season it’s a little more difficult to do. You’re so focused on stopping the best player or second-best player at the first best thing they do that you can lose three-point shooters. But historically when you look at it, those guys have been taken out of a lot of series. We’re going to still try to get our guys shots behind that line, there’s no doubt about that. And I’m sure they are, as well.

Having said that, we have to be willing to step in and take that in-between shot. If they’re going to run at you out of control, and we’ve talked about that a lot, then that gives you a driving lane, and we have to take advantage of that.

Q. Would you include Rip Hamilton in that group of in-between shooters we talked about earlier?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, he’s as good as anyone in the league, and he does it off of movement without the ball, which is even more rare. Most of the guys, the great in-between players, do it off the bounce, and he doesn’t. He can, but he does it without the ball, and catch, one dribble, and does it, which is really rare in our game. You don’t see it a lot. You haven’t seen it historically a lot, but he does it as well as anybody.

Q. Is there anything in this series that in your judgment and experience you haven’t seen before in terms of teams playing well, then playing inexplicably bad, things going the way you planned, things not going the way you planned? In other words, is it a typical playoff series in your mind?

Flip Saunders: I think it’s pretty typical. Probably the biggest difference is I think neither team probably expected to have back-to-back — both home teams lose in back-to-back situations, basically Games 2 and 3. That we would win here on the road and they would come right back and win at our place, I don’t think either team probably envisioned that.

But you have teams, and I said this from the beginning, when you have teams that are very similar, what I mean by that is some of the main parts of each team, they have the same strengths with like I said, Hamilton, Allen, both storing-type guards. The Garnett matchup as far as with Rasheed Wallace, you have one of the better defensive forwards in Tayshaun Prince versus one of the better offensive players in their leader as far as in Paul Pierce.

We thought what would be big for us would be Chauncey at that position. Of course Chauncey has been hindered a little bit, but I thought last game he came out and ran the show for us and did a nice job. That’s why I think the series has been as competitive as it’s been.

Q. During the season you were in the Top 5 in rebounding percentage. Second half of Game 4 was one of the rare times you outrebounded this team. Why have you struggled so much to rebound against the Celtics?

Flip Saunders: Defensively we’ve done some things as far as extending our defense and tilting our defense a little bit early filling, so we were leaving some people on the weak side of rebounds, a little bit more alert and a little bit more open. So that opened up some rebound opportunities for Boston. So we made a little bit of adjustment from that line.

Q. Both of these teams are known for their defense. Can you talk a little bit about that fine line between being a physical defensive team as opposed to taking it too far?

Flip Saunders: Well, I don’t think you can take it too far. I mean, I think defense basically is hard work, exerting your will, and good defensive teams. What they do is they’re basically taking away your first initial option offensively. That’s what Boston does a great job of when they’re playing good defense, that’s what we do well. Offensively, if you don’t have the ability to turn over to your second and third option, that’s when you get a little bit out of whack and you look frustrated.

Q. Tayshaun was talking this morning about wanting to get more touches in the paint, and we had talked about maybe that wasn’t a good idea because Pierce is pretty tough to post-up. Have you totally abandoned that as part of your offense?

Flip Saunders: No, I haven’t abandoned it. I think, one, what’s happened is we’ve had guys — McDyess has been phenomenal, and Rip, and what we’ve done is we’ve been able to go with those guys. The way Boston plays defense a lot with their bigs is they’re pretty much — left Dyess pretty much alone a lot and used that big to try to help out defensively. Every time Tay gets it, one of the bigs is coming to Tay almost in kind of a soft-trap situation. So haven’t given him a lot of openings down there.

From our standpoint, as I’ve said, the way our team was built, we’re not built on one guy, just giving him the ball. I think that we’ll still give him touches because I’ve got confidence we’ll take the right decision if he gets trapped to pass the ball.

Q. To what extent are you surprised at the way they had approached Antonio McDyess, and by making these shots that you knew he could make, is it triggering other things for him? Is he picking up his entire game and kind of playing off that?

Flip Saunders: I think the second part is I think there’s no question that when you score some offensively, it energizes you. I’ve always said this to our media people. You go back to seventh grade basketball camp and you see a kid score on offense, he runs back and he slaps the floor and he’s ready to play defense. These guys are the same way. When you score, your defense kind of improves a little bit.

I’m not surprised because you’ve got to understand that most teams in our league, they don’t have their two big people, guys that can’t knock down 18, 19-foot shots. Usually they’re going to have a post-up guy or a guy that does a lot of dirty work or a guy that can shoot the basketball, but usually they don’t have two of them. So it’s a little bit different. When we’re playing well, as I said to our guys, if you want to get him with a big guy, at some point you’re going to leave some of those guys open. If Dyess isn’t making that shot, the defense looks great and they’re playing the right way. A lot has to do with what they’re trying to take away, and they’ve had great success because what they’re trying to do is, they’re trying to take away the first option, which they’ve done a good job of. To our credit, our guys have looked to the second option and third, which has been Dyess, and he’s made shots, which has made it look good both as a team and as a coach.

Q. Rip Hamilton, I think it was the last game, became the career Pistons leader in playoff games, earlier became a career leader in points scored. There’s just sort of a lack of buzz about him. In coaching him what have you noticed or discovered about him, that he could do these things and not kind of get the acclaim that he could otherwise get?

Flip Saunders: Well, he does it in a way, it’s not spectacular. Most of the guys that are your great shooters or mid-range-type shooters, they’re kind of like that. People always notice the guys that are three-point shooters because they’re getting three points for their shots. They notice the guys that take it to the rim because they’re making dunks or making plays for those shots, but the lost art are the guys coming of screens and knocking down 15, 16, 17, 18, 19-foot shots and that’s kind of boring.

So what happens is, people kind of forget about them but yet you look at them after the game, and all of a sudden they have 25, 27 points, and they put so much pressure as far as on the defense. That’s kind of how Rip is.

One thing I wasn’t aware of when I came to Detroit was the phenomenal shape he was in. I knew he moved well without the ball, but I didn’t know he could do it for the length of time that he does it. And as consistent as a mid-range shooter as he was. To Rip’s credit he’s worked on things. He’s become a better three-point shooter. The one year I was there, he decides he’s going to get to the free-throw line more, and he got to the free-throw line more. He’s very underrated as a defensive player. He’s one of our better on-the-ball defenders actually.

Q. In terms of the three-point shot, some of these games look as if they could be played in 1978 in terms of people aren’t even getting them off let alone making them.

Flip Saunders: Dave Cowens likes it that way.

Q. Is this, in fact, what’s happening, that both teams are guarding it so well that it’s not being sought out as much as normally?

Flip Saunders: I think that, one, both teams are in the top three in three-point percentage over the course of the year, and I think one of the main things both teams are trying to do is take that away. And I think people are staying at home more on the three-point type shooters.

From our standpoint, Rasheed shoots a lot of them. Garnett guarding him, Garnett is great back at chasing back and chasing people off those threes. So neither team is getting a lot of really good looks as far as getting threes. That is a credit to what the players are doing and following as far as what coaches are trying to get them to do.

Q. Perk, can you just talk about Paul was saying when you guys broke the huddle, he reminded everybody of the opportunity you guys have in front of you.

Kendrick Perkins: Yeah. I thought last night we dropped our guards a little bit. I thought we were cool the whole game. I didn’t think we had the energy level and focus that we did in Game 3. But, you know, we did what we had to do, split, got home-court advantage back, and we’ve just got to take care of tomorrow.

Q. How much faith do you have that your big guys will be able to do big things?

Kendrick Perkins: Well, they never talk negative, especially, Ray, Paul and KG. They never talk negative, like even after the loss yesterday. They stayed positive and was like, we didn’t win, just don’t worry about it. We’re not losing no more games at home, so they’re pretty comfortable.

Q. What do you have to do against McDyess?

Kendrick Perkins: You know, I think as a team they’re kind of living with McDyess shooting that shot. If McDyess can’t hit that shot and we give Rip 20 and Rasheed 16, if McDyess don’t hit 21, we’ve got to shut everybody else down. What it is is that we’re trapping Rip and McDyess is wide open. You know, if you’re going to take something away, you’re going to end up giving up something. If we’re going to take away Rip, then that’s what it’s going to be.

Q. (Inaudible).

Kendrick Perkins: It’s very important, especially at home. I think if we get off to a good start, get the crowd into it, we’ll be in good shape.

Q. Seemed like Detroit raised their level of intensity in the last game. Do you guys feel like coming back here you need to raise your level of intensity again?

Kendrick Perkins: I think they did an okay job. I feel we have it ourselves more than anything. We just have to make extra passes, worry about offensive rebounds. But I thought we came in with the right mind frame that we wanted to win the game, it’s just our energy wasn’t there last night.

Q. (Inaudible).

Kendrick Perkins: I don’t feel different. We only lost one game. We finally got a road win, so I guess it is what it is. We feel good every time we get to play at home here at the garden, especially in front of our fans. It’s like night and day playing in Detroit.

Q. (Inaudible).

Kendrick Perkins: We need to come out and be aggressive. But I know those type of guys; they bury themselves. If they don’t have shots, they’re going to pass the ball. But I look for them to come out and be more aggressive.

Q. (Inaudible).

Kendrick Perkins: Yeah, he can, but you never know who might step up. It might be Ray or it might be Rondo. You never know; that’s the good thing about our team.

Paul Pierce: We’re the type of team, like I said all year, we don’t get too up on wins, we don’t get too down on losses. We’ve got a loose group. We came out here, watched some film, went over some plays, went over some things. That’s what the playoffs is all about. Each game is an adjustment, and our guys have to just remain positive and stay together. We came out here and made some adjustments, and that’s how it’s going to be. We’re going to stay loose, and we understand that we’ve got to go tomorrow.

Q. Did McDyess surprise you last night?

Paul Pierce: We know what McDyess is capable of. He’s capable of knocking down those shots. He got into a rhythm. McDyess, we don’t want him in that type of rhythm. He’s an All-Star, he’s been an All-Star in this league, and he’s more than capable, and he showed that last night. If we can take him away from some of those shots and put some on the ground and get offensive rebounds, we’ll give ourselves a better chance of controlling him. But I think he’s been a key for them in this series. When he plays well, they play well.

Q. (Inaudible).

Paul Pierce: They picked it up, but we’ve got to go to another level. That’s what this series is all about, it’s a defensive bout. The team that plays defense is the team that’s going to win, so we’ve got to pick up our energy level. I told the guys, we’ve got a great opportunity, man. We don’t get this opportunity too many times in our career. You’ve got to go out there and play like it’s our last because you never know when it’s going to happen again.