The first year after Danny Ainge assembled the Big Three, the Celtics won 66 games. A year ago, they won 62 games, despite spending a huge chunk of the year without Kevin Garnett. This summer, the Cs courted Rasheed Wallace, persuading him by saying he could be the piece that makes this one of the best teams in NBA history.

Wallace, apparently, took that quite literally.

Asked by Thomas Halzack of the Connecticut Post if he thought this Celtics team could make a run at the 1995-96 Bulls record 72-10 season, Wallace said he thought it was possible.

"Oh definitely," Wallace told Halzack. "Definitely, playing with those three other guys, also combining that with the guys we have on the bench, I think we can definitely can. Me personally, I think we can get that Bulls record. You know we have the talent for it. We have the will for it and…I think we have the defense for it."

The Celtics went on a 19-game tear -- the longest winning streak in team history -- early last year and were 27-2 going into a Christmas Day matchup with the Lakers, which they lost 92-83. The year before that, they were 29-3 two-plus months into the season, and didn't lose their 10th game until late February.

The most common knock on the Celtics is the age of their stars. The year the Bulls ripped through the league, a 32-year-old Michael Jordan was in the first full year of his initial comeback, Scottie Pippen was 30 years old, and a newly-acquired, wildly-eccentric Dennis Rodman was 34.

Wallace told Halzack, "They had some HOFs on there, but we have a few on this team, too."