Danny Ainge was finally able to get his guy at the helm in Boston, and as Doc Rivers was introduced at a press conference at the Fleet Center yesterday afternoon the Celtics owners, players and team employees all showed their appreciation.

Rivers communicated well during the conference, saying that while there might have been safer jobs for him to persue this summer Boston was the challenge he wanted because of his relationship with Ainge, they are the history enriched Celtics, and that the team always wants to win.

"I don't know [if taking this job] is a gamble," said Rivers. "Well, I guess it is, but it's the one I wanted to take. There were probably safer situations out there, but I liked this one right away. This is the Boston Celtics. I don't think you take the safe job all the time. I'm going to make this work. I have a great relationship with Danny. And I'll tell you something -- they haven't won it every year here, but they want to win it every year."

ESPN has announced that the Boston Celtics will name Doc Rivers as their new head coach tomorrow. A news conference is expected to take place on Thursday.

Rivers, who was fired by the Orlando Magic 11 games into the season will be with his second team as a head coach.  In his four seasons with the Magic, Rivers made the playoffs three times and was coach of the year in 2000.  

Rivers will be replacing interim head coach John Carroll, who on Monday was told by the Celtics that he would not be back as head coach.

In a move which came as a suprise to no one, Boston GM Danny Ainge let interim coach John Carroll know that he will not be in charge of the Celtics next season.

``A change is needed,'' said Ainge, who felt that younger players like Marcus Banks and Chris Mihm weren't given enough playing time to develop by O'Brien and Carroll. ``I've felt that way for a while, but I came to the conclusion this morning. What I'm looking for is just different.

``John did a great job. One of his strengths is communication, and that's a lost art in the coaching business today. John believes that he can do the job, but after seeing it from my perspective, I think we both agreed it's best to go in another direction.''

Carroll's curriculum vitae is certainly much improved from his tenture with the Celtics, proving that he can lead a team in distress to the Playoffs.  Despite this fact Carroll knew that his chances of remaining with the Celtics were slim.

``I didn't know if I was going to be the head coach with the Celtics, but I do know I should be a head coach in the NBA somewhere,'' he said. ``My greatest gift was in bringing a certain calmness to a franchise that was in a fractured situation.''

Ainge also told assistant coaches Frank Vogel, Lester Conner, Joe Gallagher and Paul Cormier that they now are free to talk with other teams. According to Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald ex-Celtic and new Sixer coach Jim O'Brien reportedly called Ainge yesterday asking for permission to talk to the members of his old staff.

Murphy writes that Ainge likely will choose a candidate from a wide-ranging list that includes NBA veteran coaches Paul Westphal, Doc Rivers and Terry Stotts, assistants Lionel Hollins and Dwane Casey, and a pair of intriguing novices - Avery Johnson and Jeff Hornacek.

``Ideally, I want a coach who can coach and I don't have to worry about,'' Ainge said. ``I want to be like Jerry West and Larry Bird, out there scouting while their coaches take care of the team. You want to pat your coach on the back and let him do his job.''

All signs point to the fact that Mark Blount has played his last game for the Boston Celtics.

Blount put up career highs in Game 4 as the Celtics were swept, and now that his season is over and unhappy with the instability of the organization, he is going to opt out of his contract to test the free agent market.

"I'm going to test free agency and let [my agent] Mark Bartelstein do his job," said Blount. "That's it. [Bartelstein] has told me he's been talking to a couple of people. I'll give him a call in the next couple of days and find out who they are. [I'd be interested in] anybody who's winning and wants somebody that can play defense and rebound."

"I just wanted the Boston fans to know that I'm going to work," said Blount following the Celtics' 90-75 loss to Indiana. "Hopefully, in the last game, they'll appreciate it."

With Boston losing in straight sets to the Indiana Pacers Celtics GM Danny Ainge could simply have held up a sign which read  `I Told You So', writes Peter May of the Boston Globe.

It was Ainges plan to rebuild the Celtics in a manner which developed the younger players at the expense of taking a few knocks along the way.. and of course landing the lottery for an all-important draft pick.

Then-coach Jim O'Brien, now in charge in Philadelphia, didn't play along and tried to win as many games as possible before resigning mid-season.  O'Brien's decision, according to May, was what Ainge called the biggest distraction of the season, and was something he wasn't responsible for.

"The coaching change? I don't take responsibility for having the coach walk out. I didn't do anything to have him walk out other than I existed. There wasn't a person who existed in my position before. The responsibility is mine for some of the things that happened. But it's still a players' job to play." (O'Brien, when told of the comments, did not want to respond.) Ainge did praise O'Brien as a good coach Ainge wishes had not ended up in Philadelphia. But he said he didn't agree with O'Brien's approach, namely, to win as many games as possible.

"Obie was a coach that I have a great deal of admiration for to this day," Ainge said. "I'm not happy he's going to Philly because I think he's a very good coach. But, I think [O'Brien and his staff] came in with the design to win every single basketball game."

"This has been my big thing all year," he said. "I said from the beginning that you come into training camp and you play regular-season basketball in preparation for the playoffs. You don't try to win every quarter. You don't have to win every game. If you get to the playoffs and you're not prepared, because you're not deep enough, or you're not prepared enough, then this is the kind of thing that happens. You prepare for playoff basketball. If you don't make the playoffs, because you're trying to prepare, then so be it. That was my thing all along. You have to prepare to get there."

Knicks forward Vin Baker will get $16 million not to play for the Boston Celtics but his former team will save a lot more with him elsewhere.

"Under the agreement reached recently with Baker and the NBA Players Association, the Celtics will pay Baker $16 million over the next three seasons, in equal installments of $5.33 million per season. In addition, Baker's salary for the 2003-04 season was reduced from $13.5 million to around $6.1 million. The information came from salary documents recently made available to NBA teams."

Under the original deal, the Celtics would have had to pay Baker $14.625 million in 2004-05 and $15.750 million in 2005-06 if incentive clauses kicked in but now they only have to pay the $5.33 million each season.

All in all, the Celtics saved $21 million in this deal and will be likely avoid the luxury tax because of it.

"While there was much talk that the Celtics wanted to miss the playoffs and get a better pick in the draft, it is interesting to note interim coach John Carroll picked up a bonus of more than $100,000 for guiding the club into the postseason."

"According to sources, the clause was inserted when Carroll's deal was reworked upon former coach Jim O'Brien's departure."

Boston rookie Brandon Hunter's bout with infamy ended after just one arm whip and six minutes of Game 1 action.

Hunter's takedown of Jermaine O'Neal during the second quarter of Game 1 was the altercation that brought Indiana Pacers All-Star forward Ron Artest off the bench, resulting in Artest being suspended for Tuesday night's Game 2.

But Hunter, like Artest, didn't play. Hunter was in uniform, while Artest, per NBA rules, was banned from the building.

Celtics captain Paul Pierce sounded off before the game on Hunter and Artest, who was replaced as the chief defender on Pierce by a committee of Pacers that included Al Harrington, Jonathan Bender, Reggie Miller, Fred Jones and even center Jeff Foster.

"He's a beast out there," Pierce said of Hunter. "I mean, shoot, sometimes (a situation like what happened in Game 1) can uplift a guy in the NBA. Look what happened to Dennis Rodman."

"I think every championship team has a guy like that."

The way things were going, Jermaine O'Neal felt like an intruder when he was called off the bench in the fourth quarter Tuesday.

How would it have looked if an All-Star ruined the frenzied work of the reserves?

"It was to the point I almost didn't want to go back in there," O'Neal said after the Indiana Pacers' 103-90 victory over Boston in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series. "You don't want to mess up the chemistry. You don't want the opposing team to go on a run and you were the reason they came back and beat you."

It's unlikely Tatum O'Neal could have done much to disrupt the 38-point fourth-quarter blitz the Pacers laid on Boston at Conseco Fieldhouse. With a flying squadron of reserves putting on an aerial show, they not only didn't need Ron Artest, they barely needed the starting lineup.

Al Harrington, filling in for the suspended Artest, joined Fred Jones, Jonathan Bender, Austin Croshere and Anthony Johnson in mounting a 24-4 run that took the Pacers from a 69-61 deficit late in the third period to an 85-73 lead midway through the fourth.

"One of the most important stretches of basketball we've played this year," coach Rick Carlisle said.

Jim O'Brien wasn't unemployed for long.

On Tuesday, the former head coach of the Boston Celtics was hired by the Philadelphia 76ers as their new head coach.

A press conference is scheduled for 3p.m. on Wednesday at the Wachovia Center to introduce O'Brien to the media.

O'Brien's contract is a multi-year deal believed to be worth at or more than $3 million a season.

O'Brien was 139-119 with the Celtics, which was his only NBA head coaching job until this one.

The Portland TrailBlazers are relieved that the 76ers didn't come after their coach Maurice Cheeks, who Portland denied Philadelphia to talk to last year.

"Now we can go about our business without further distraction," Blazers general manager John Nash said last night, adding that persistent speculation about Cheeks "was baseless because Philly never asked us about Maurice Cheeks."

Chris Ford, who became the team's interim head coach after Randy Ayers was fired on February 10, is interested in staying with the team and plans on to chat with 76ers president and general manager Billy King about that possibility.