Rivers still has plenty of things to pick over

WALTHAM -- Coach Doc Rivers should consider adding the cellphone numbers of every NBA official to his speed dial. It would eliminate the media as middlemen.

Once again, Rivers lobbied for more calls against the Pacers, questioning the legality of their picks and alleging Reggie Miller kicks and grabs and "has all the tricks in the bag."

"I thought [in Game 1] they set picks well, but I thought there were some iffy picks in that game," said Rivers. "I saw our guys going to the floor a lot. The thing I liked about our guys was they got up and just kept playing. Two months ago, our guys would have started griping or looking for help. They were not going to be deterred. They just kept playing, so we have to be ready for that.

"Indiana is a good pick-setting team. I thought there were times, though, where they got away with some illegal picks. . . we just have to hope some of those are called."

Rivers tried a less direct approach when complaining about Miller, softening his critique with compliments. But he still made his point by recalling a second-quarter conversation with rookie Tony Allen, who drew the assignment on Miller in Game 1 along with Ricky Davis and Delonte West.

"Defensively, all we tried to do was run him off shots," said Rivers. "It's tough to do. Tony was complaining in the second that he kicked him twice, that he grabbed him twice. We sat Tony down and said, `Get used to it. He probably hasn't kicked you half as much as he's going to do [tonight].' "

Change in the air
Al Jefferson has become a legitimate threat after finishing with 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocked shots in his playoff debut. That much was obvious when Rivers discussed how the Celtics prepared the rookie for Game 2. "I would be very surprised if they didn't change their coverage on Al," said Rivers. "We worked on three different coverages. We don't know how they're going to guard him, so we just figured out every way that you can guard him and we put Al through that today. Al can really pass the ball, but he's such a great scorer, he's not really looking to pass the ball." . . . The series features a contrast in styles. Boston wants to run. Indiana needs to slow down the pace. The Celtics didn't play at their pace as much as they would have liked in Game 1, scoring just 11 of 102 points on the fast break. Paul Pierce would like to see more running from his teammates in Game 2. "We definitely want to keep up our tempo, run as much as possible, but I think in the playoffs, we've turned into an opportunistic running team," said Pierce. "With only 11 fast-break points, we scored over 100 points, how does that add up? Of course, we want to utilize our strengths, which is our youth and our athleticism, and make it an open-court game. We're not as big as some of these teams out here so we've got to use our quickness, our speed, to our advantage. Now that we've got Game 1 out of the way, I think we'll have a better flow to the start of the game."