Wallace goes off on the officiating

Rasheed Wallace tried to bite his tongue. Honest, he did.

What bothered him most was the way the notebook-toters danced around it.

Confidence?

"We already had confidence," he said. "We don't need confidence from one losing game to go into another. We already had confidence."

The fourth quarter?

"Just came out and we wasn't ready," he said, shrugging.

Kendrick Perkins?

"Yeah, he picked up some key weakside rebounds," Wallace said. "That's part of the game."

Ray Allen hitting from everywhere?

"Ray can go ahead and hit," he said. "He can hit shots or whatever, but we still had a chance with him hitting those shots."

Wallace wondered why the real issue - the officiating - wasn't addressed. After holding back, Wallace could do it no longer, so he let go with an expletive-filled tirade against the referees.

"All [the expletive] calls they had out there," Wallace finally spewed. "A lot of them phantom calls flopping and falling all over the floor . . ."

Wallace went off so much that he's likely to be fined for his comments against the referees.

Five fouls were called on Wallace. Antonio McDyess was assessed the maximum six. Altogether, the Pistons were whistled 30 times. Wallace has six technicals this postseason, and will be suspended if he's tagged with a seventh.

Ever since Game 4, when everyone from Paul Pierce to Rajon Rondo acknowledged the Celtics were pushed around, the overwhelming feeling going into last night's 106-102 win was to push back. They did.

When Chauncey Billups scooped up one of Rondo's missed layups and had a clear lane for an easy layup, Pierce streaked down for a foul.

When McDyess looked like he had an easy deuce in the paint, Perkins came across and grabbed him by his jersey to make sure McDyess earned his 2 points at the line (he didn't).

The Celtics were whistled 21 times. And in coach Doc Rivers's eyes, they didn't foul enough compared to what they've had to put up with all series.

"We were fouling a lot?" Rivers asked, tongue firmly in his cheek.

Whether or not Wallace thinks it's basketball, it's the brand of ball the series has come down to.

"We wanted to be physical," Rivers said. "But we were playing just like them."

Rivers continued, "I'm glad I'm not an official. Because it's very physical out there, and they had Flip [Saunders] yelling at them. I never yell.

"It's just a physical game," he said. "It's tough to call. But it's both teams. I don't think [one team is] any more physical than the other. I thought both teams wanted the game badly tonight."

Going forward, Rodney Stuckey said, the Celtics can keep bringing it. "That's what we like," he said. "That's what we do, so we expect it from them."

When someone asked Saunders about the physicality, he sank into his tongue, hard.

"I think both teams played hard tonight and both teams were extremely physical," he said. I think we played the same way we played last game. I don't think there was much difference."

Wallace ended the press session by heading to the trainers' tables, still cursing the calls.