WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) Still stunned by the resignation of Jim O'Brien, interim coach John Carroll tried to focus the Boston Celtics on their next game.
It wasn't easy.
``I don't think it's really worn off,'' Carroll said Wednesday about the shock of O'Brien's departure. ``Jim used to always talk to me about sleeping patterns and I never really understood what he was talking about till last night. I sat there with about 1,000 thoughts going through my head.''
Entering Wednesday night's game against Detroit, there were many questions about a franchise shaken by two major trades and Tuesday's resignation of O'Brien. The former coach had philosophical differences with Danny Ainge, the executive director of basketball operations who made those trades.
How will Carroll fare in his first shot at being an NBA head coach? How will he allot playing time when he hasn't done that much and Ainge wants youngsters to play more?
And what are his chances of having the interim tag removed, since he shares many of O'Brien's basketball philosophies?
``It's been an unusual 24 hours,'' Carroll said. ``As I told the team, I'm going to work as hard as I can for however long I'm the head coach here and do the best job I can.''
O'Brien has not commented in his resignation. Calls to his agent, Lonnie Cooper, were not returned.
Celtics captain Paul Pierce could sense O'Brien's frustration growing.
``You sort of felt it at times, but I never thought it would come to this,'' Pierce said.
Carroll's last head coaching experience was in college at Duquesne from 1989-95. After two seasons as an advance scout for Portland and Orlando, he became a Celtics assistant on June 23, 1997.
Now he moves over one seat on the Celtics bench, but inherits an enormous challenge with a young team that has only three holdovers on the active roster from last season.
``Jim and I feel very alike about the game of basketball,'' Carroll said. ``He was a basketball purist. I feel the same way.''
He must deal with Ainge's desire for a younger, more up tempo team with greater offense. O'Brien always emphasized defense and relying on veterans.
Becoming a head coach ``is something that I worked hard for,'' Carroll said. ``I've been thrust into, obviously, a very unusual situation but I understand it.''
The Celtics went into Wednesday night's game in second place in the Atlantic Division _ but sixth in the Eastern Conference and 16th in the NBA _ with a 22-24 record.
They had lost five of their previous seven games and have tried to find their way since Dec. 15, when the Celtics obtained Ricky Davis and Chris Mihm in a six-player trade that sent two of O'Brien's favorite veterans and defenders, Eric Williams and Tony Battie, to Cleveland.
That came less than two months after Ainge traded Antoine Walker to Dallas on Oct. 20.
``We just can't make excuses,'' Pierce said. ``You just have to turn negatives into positives.''