Auerbach knows the score

"I think Jim O'Brien is getting the best out of the team as he can get," Auerbach said. "We don't have enough guys who can shoot. It's great to have athletes who can run all over the place, jump high, and play defense. But when push comes to shove, we have no one who can put the ball in the hole except Paul [Pierce]. And that's not enough.

"You can't give up a guy like Walker, who gave you 20 points a game, and expect to be the same. I'm not saying anything against the deal. We might get a good player with that [No. 1] draft pick and maybe things will be better when [Raef] LaFrentz gets well. But you can't win games if you can't shoot and the other team is always outrebounding you. We're a couple guys short."

Auerbach said O'Brien should not be the fall guy in this scenario.

"He's an extremely dedicated guy," said Auerbach. "You've got to admire a guy with his dedication. He works so hard, every day. He has the respect of his players and he's a pretty good bench coach. He just doesn't have enough guys."

So the Celtics need someone who can put the ball in the basket. That's not exactly a news bulletin. They also need a mean guy, a tough guy, according to the Le Grand Rouge. That, too, is not exactly a bell-ringer.

"We made a mistake letting [Danny] Fortson go," Auerbach said. He has said that before, something that caused Fortson's eyes to light up when told of the remark. "It all boils down to one thing: You can't always be the retaliator. You've got to be the instigator once in a while. Sometimes, you have to beat the [bad word] out of the other guy before they beat the [bad word] out of you."

So let's address a few of Red's points and, in the holiday spirit of giving, see if there's something we can do, trying to be realistic about what the Celtics have and what they might get.

Fortson: He would be great in Boston. Alas, the Mavericks like him, too, and would be disinclined to do a Fortson-Eric Williams deal or even one that included Tony Battie and a salary to balance things out. "We really like Danny's toughness and the way he clears space for our other rebounders," Mavs owner Mark Cuban said via email. "Plus, he sets the tone and example for our guys on how to rebound." Fortson would like to play more than he's playing in Dallas (11-plus minutes a game.) Danny Ainge should see whether he can pry him away.

A shooter: Brent Barry is in the last year of his contract with Seattle. He supposedly is expendable, with the imminent return of Ray Allen and the emergence of Ronald Murray. He's an Ainge favorite. Salary-capwise, he could be acquired, even up, for Williams. He'd be an offensive upgrade at the swing position and he can handle the ball. Maybe Ainge has his sights on Barry for next summer, but sooner might be better.

A point guard: Auerbach didn't mention this, so we will. We know Ainge wants Marcus Banks to be the guy to run his up-tempo show. Maybe that day will come. The Celtics could do a lot worse now than bring in Pepe Sanchez, who was recently released by the Warriors. I know I have a soft spot for Argentines (Andres Nocioni in particular), but Sanchez knows how to run a team and has done so under international, pressure-cooker conditions. He knows how to defend. He's tough. And he's available. No, he isn't the quickest thing on two feet and he isn't the best shooter. But this team needs someone to get the ball to the right person at the right time.

A tough guy: Why the Celtics let Erick Strickland go is a mystery, because he wanted to stay and he exemplified the grittiness that got Boston to the conference finals in 2002. He's on a two-year deal with Milwaukee, where he also isn't seeing much time (16.9 minutes a game in nine games) and might be available. You could do him, even up, with the likes of Jumaine Jones, Kedrick Brown, or Walter McCarty. (All deals would have to wait until Dec. 16 for cap reasons.)

So there are options. Look at it this way, Danny. You've finally hit the big time here. You're a regular topic on the whiner line.

Facts and factors

Sure, it may be hard to look at the Dallas box scores these days (although not the one that had Antoine going 4 of 18). You can look at the situation now and come to the conclusion that it was a bad deal for Boston. But you have to remember some things. Walker was not going to re-sign here for what the Celtics were willing to offer, so they risked losing him for nothing. What's more worrisome is the status of LaFrentz's knee. It can't be that bad, can it? Jiri Welsch looks like a more-than-serviceable swingman who, if his shots fall, can be even better than that. And there are still two extras to come: the draft pick and, Ainge assures us, a free agent next summer. Ainge concluded that the team he inherited had, as Will sings in "Oklahoma!," gone "about as fer as it could go." The big unknown: What if he had done nothing, and Vin Baker and Walker were both here? The rebuttal: Walker was not a happy camper during training camp, and the reason is he knew he wasn't going to get the extension he wanted. That wasn't going to change . . . Today in Memphis, the Grizzlies host the Trail Blazers and Bonzi Wells will get his first shot at his former team. (A better date is Jan. 6 at Portland, but Wells was booed there when he was a Blazer.) Both Memphis boss Jerry West and Grizzlies coach Hubie Brown talked to Wells before acquiring him for Wes Person and a draft pick. The gist of the chat: You won't last long in Memphis if you continue to act like a complete jerk. "He just needed a change of scenery," West suggested. The trade came just a couple of days after Brown told us in Boston that he played 10 guys regularly for a reason. "We're a young team," Hubie said. "We play 10 guys to develop them and to turn them into two-for-one trades. You've got do that these days." Wells is an undeniable talent who had devolved into a surly reprobate in Portland. In the last three seasons, he was suspended five times and fined three times. In his final game in Portland as a Blazer, he was booed every time he touched the ball. "I think it's key for the fans to understand that we're listening and we're following through on what we said we'd do," said Blazers president Steve Patterson. "This is a deal that's good for all the parties -- and that's why we are moving ahead with it." There were reports that the Celtics got involved, with one proposal having Boston surrendering McCarty, Mike James, Brown, Williams, and Battie for Wells, Ruben Patterson, and Jeff McInnis. Apprised of that proposal, which fails to pass salary-cap muster anyway, Portland GM John Nash chuckled and said, "I'm not particularly interested in making Danny Ainge the Executive of the Year." Finally, a story out of the Portland Oregonian may make it even clearer why the Blazers traded Wells for 50 cents on the basketball dollar. This gem appeared in a column by John Canzano: "As [Wells and Rasheed Wallace] were leaving the practice facility Wednesday, the morning of their final shootaround together, Wells and Wallace saw Ruben Boumtje Boumtje shooting jump shots some 100 feet away with his back turned to them. Wallace slapped Wells on the back and said, `Watch this.' Then he picked up a ball, reared back and fired a 100-foot, baseball-style strike that left Boumtje Boumtje writhing on the floor. Trainers were summoned. After a few scary minutes, Boumtje Boumtje walked off, OK. Wells and Wallace? They giggled like schoolchildren and ran away the moment their teammate hit the canvas. So, Grizzlies fans, this is what you're really getting in the deal." . . . One possible good break for Portland concerns ultra-talented young forward Zach Randolph. His car was stopped last week and, from the news stories, it sure looked as though he had been drinking, smoking something bad, and had no driving documentation at a ridiculous early-morning hour. Closer-to-the-truth version: Randolph was stopped at 12:30 a.m., had proper insurance and a valid driver's license, passed a Breathalyzer, and the police could find no evidence of marijuana in the car. The Blazers, however, were still waiting for urinalysis reports.

Seat of power

I'm not sure there's any rule against it, but why does Ainge end up sitting right behind the Celtics bench on some road games? Most men of his considerable stature sit in the stands, Cuban being the rather large exception. One thing you won't see is Ainge sitting on the bench. Talking about new Bulls coach Scott Skiles last week, Ainge said, "To me, he's one guy who's just a coach. Period. And I think he'll be better this time around. I know if I did it again -- and I'm not -- that I'd be better, too." Ainge, by the way, brought Skiles into the NBA coaching loop when he was head coach of the Suns. "I played against him and he always knew every play," Ainge said. "When I got to hire my own assistants in Phoenix, [Rick] Carlisle was my first choice. But Larry [Bird] got him. Scott was my second choice. And when I quit, I had to convince the Colangelos to make him the new coach." . . . We didn't see the best of him last Monday, but the Grizzlies have a real gem in Pau Gasol. He had gone for 38 two nights earlier in Cleveland that could have been 50 if he had gotten more calls. Unfortunately, Gasol has two strikes against him: He plays for a non-playoff team and he's a European. "In FIBA [Europe], you're allowed to whine," said Hubie Brown. "In the NBA, if you whine, you're not going to get the next three calls. FIBA allows those guys to whine and carry on. So it's a tough adjustment for him. And he has a lot to whine about." No one has to tell Brown that bad teams don't get calls. "We all know what that's about," he said. "It's a part of the business." . . . That Christmas game on ABC is going to be a beauty. It features Cleveland, which, despite LeBron James, is hovering around the bottom of the Central Division and has lost 33 straight road games, and Orlando, which went 0-for-November. The Magic are hosting the game, which originally looked tempting with James and Tracy McGrady going at it. Instead, it could be a matchup of two last-place teams. By the way, the record for most consecutive road losses is 43 set by the Sacramento Kings in the early 1990s . . . When the Nuggets defeated the Warriors in Oakland last Wednesday, they matched their road win total (4) from last season. "That's a nice stat, but seven of us had nothing to do with last year," noted Nuggets reserve sparkplug Jon Barry. "This is a totally different team. We've got four new guards. We've got Carmelo [Anthony]." In the Denver-Golden State game, Voshon Lenard erupted for 26 points in the first quarter, setting a record for a quarter by a Warriors opponent. (The previous mark of 25 had been jointly held by Karl Malone and Terry Porter. The NBA record is 33 held by George Gervin.) "That was a big-time performance," Barry said of Lenard. "And the amazing thing was that it was all jumpers. Normally, if a guy has a quarter like that, there are free throws in there, or layups. This was all jump shots. It was awesome to watch." . . . Before the Raptors made their big trade with Chicago, they had scored fewer than 70 points in five games this season, including a pathetic 56-point submission against the Timberwolves. In the two games after the trade, Toronto scored 95 and 105 points, winning both. The new players (Jalen Rose, Lonnie Baxter, Donyell Marshall) had not even had one day of practice. And the back-to-back wins over Philly (Tuesday) and Boston (Wednesday) marked the first time the Raptors had won on successive days since March 27-28, 2002. The Raptors hit a franchise-record 17 3-pointers against the Celtics. The previous high this season for a team had been 13 . . . Happy Birthday, Larry. The Birdman turns 47 today.

Material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.