Shaq's take

Suns center Shaquille O'Neal stood outside the visitors' locker room signing autographs and chatting with a few privileged fans after the game. Shaq was honest about the loss his team took at the hands of the Celtics tonight.

"Against a team put together like this you almost have to do everything right, especially here in this building," he said. "You have to do everything right. We did pretty much everything right except for taking care of the ball. We just had way too many turnovers, and they just came out and they played excellent ball, played excellent defense. It was a well-fought game, but I just think we made too many mistakes.”

On facing Detroit and Boston in back-to-back games, O'Neal said, “You've got to play damn near perfect basketball to beat them, especially at their place...In order to come out of the East they’re going to have to go to through each other, no doubt about that."