Rivers discouraged by passive play

INDIANAPOLIS -- For the second game in a row in this best-of-seven series against the Indiana Pacers, Boston coach Doc Rivers did not detect any fighting response from his Celtics, Antoine Walker's fourth-quarter shoving match with Jermaine O'Neal and subsequent ejection notwithstanding. And that, it seemed, was the most disturbing aspect of last night's 99-76 loss to the Pacers in Game 3 before a sellout crowd at the Conseco Fieldhouse.

After the Celtics routed Indiana in Game 1, the Pacers pushed back in Game 2.

In their return to the ear-splitting din of their homecourt sanctuary, the Pacers pushed again to take a 2-1 lead in this series.

"I thought they were physical, I thought they were the aggressors for 40 minutes of the 48, I thought they competed hard, and I thought they got all the loose balls," Rivers said of the Pacers, who were led by Reggie Miller's game-high 33 points and Jermaine O'Neal's 21 points and 11 rebounds. "This team has been together and if we try to play tit-for-tat and try to think our way through this series, we're not going to do too well. That's their advantage. They do have that advantage and we knew that going into it. But we have the advantage of youth and athleticism and we have to use that, and we haven't."

But if one thing disappointed Rivers above all others, it was simply that the Celtics weren't able to return fire with fire.

"I thought that they attacked us," Rivers said. "We've been on our heels the last two games, and we have to answer that."

Rivers's only solution, it seemed, was to appeal to the veterans on his squad to lead the rest of the team out of this situation.

"The young guys are going to be young and there's nothing we can do about that," Rivers said. "But our veterans have to lead the way for our young guys. Our veterans, to me, are going to have to be the group that supplies the young guys with confidence. That's something that we can do, but we have to do it."

Asked if he was disappointed that veteran leadership seemed to be absent in that moment Walker allowed O'Neal to get the best of him, Rivers said, "Well, you know, Jermaine O'Neal started it. That's what I think you should focus on. He started the whole thing. Antoine was coming to the defense of his young player, Delonte West. After that, yeah, Antoine should have kept his cool. But, listen, we were getting our tails whipped, they were frustrated."

None probably more so than Ricky Davis, who scored just 2 points last night after missing eight of 10 shots while committing four fouls in 26 torturous minutes. In the last two games, Davis has scored 8 points on 3-for-18 shooting. It's not the type of stewardship becoming of a six-year veteran who fashioned himself this season as something of a sixth man extraordinaire.

So what was the matter with Davis?

"He's missing shots, really," Rivers said. "I think he was pressing a little bit. I thought he was aiming early on and you could actually see him. It wasn't that quick-triggered jump shot that he usually has. He held it for a little longer and he was just trying to aim the ball in. Quite honestly, before the game, I would've bet my life that Ricky was going to have a great game, because he rarely struggles with his shot two nights in a row. I think Ricky will be fine."

Rivers's greatest concern, truth be told, was not allowing the Celtics to lose any more skirmishes in what has turned into a real tussle with the Pacers.

"We've got to have some fight," Rivers said. "We haven't had any fight for two games. I told them at the end of the game, it's a 2-1 series and we get one more game here and we get to go home. Hopefully, it'll be 2-2 and we'll get to go home and to go up 3-2."