Walker Gives Celtics Big Lift

Doc Rivers throws around the word “efficiency” with the same zest as his team displays it.

He hates the 3-point shot, though he can live with a few each game. He despises needless dribbling, preferring instead for his players to pass. And he’s a big believer in chemistry, a quality that’s been enhanced for the Boston Celtics since they reacquired Antoine Walker and turned their season around over the past month.

“Offensively, we’ve been good all year. But now we’re good and efficient, and I think that’s a big difference,” Rivers said,

That efficiency is documented in a few of the Celtics’ most recent box scores: 52 percent shooting in a 13-point victory over New Orleans, 8-of-15 accuracy from the 3-point line in an 11-point road victory at Houston, 55 percent shooting in a one-point win over Toronto, a 58 percent success rate from the field in a 19-point victory over Charlotte.

Wednesday night’s 25-point loss at New York prevented the Celtics from having their first six-game road winning streak since 1984, the year Rivers broke in as a rookie with the Atlanta Hawks and the Celtics -- led by Larry Bird -- were beginning a stretch of four straight appearances in the NBA Finals.

Rivers was highly critical of his players after the loss to the Knicks, saying they had a little too much swagger and cockiness for a team that has accomplished, in the big picture, very little.

“We got one of them type of games out of our systems, and hopefully we can get on another win streak,” Paul Pierce said. “We’re a confident ballclub with what we’ve got right now. We can play with pretty much anybody in the NBA -- and I don’t think that’s cockiness. We just have a lot of guys playing with confidence.”

That confidence was built up over the course of a seven-game winning streak as part of a stretch of 11 victories in 12 games, with the only loss coming on a last-second shot by Minnesota’s Latrell Sprewell.

That run moved the Celtics nine games above .500, ending their status as a nondescript member of one of the most maligned divisions in NBA history and quieting the talk of what a shame it would be to have a division winner with a losing record -- something that hasn’t happened since the Milwaukee Bucks won the Midwest Division with a record of 38-44 in 1975-76.

“We were turning in the right direction, it started about three weeks before the All-Star break,” Rivers said. “Then Antoine comes and really gives us a boost, not only on the floor but off the floor.”

The trade for Walker was a bold move by executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge, not because of the price he paid, but because of the fact that he brought back a player he had traded away only 16 months earlier.

At the time, Ainge made it clear he was not a fan of Walker’s style of play, while Walker knocked Ainge for breaking up the core of a better-than-average team.

“A lot of teams wouldn’t have made the re-trade, as I call it,” Rivers said. “A lot of guys wouldn’t bring a guy back, there were harsh words both ways, but as Danny said: ‘Winning is more important.’

Walker’s shooting percentage has jumped from 42 percent with the Hawks to a shade below 49 percent with the Celtics, his 3-point percentage has gone from 32 percent to 39 percent, and his turnovers are down from 3.4 per game to 2.7.

“We were in the top five (in scoring) before he came, and we’re still there, but I think we’re more efficient,” Rivers said. “He adds another passer, number one, and another spacer, because you can’t leave him alone, so that allows us to run things without worrying about double team. Houston and New Orleans tried to double-team, and we really made them pay.”

It’s too soon to say whether the Celtics will be able to sustain their success in the playoffs, but after the Red Sox won the World Series and the Patriots won the Super Bowl, there’s a school of thought in Boston that this just might be Beantown’s year to threaten a championship threesome.

Boston has gone 0-2 against Miami this season, although both games took place very early in the season -- and both were close. The Celtics will play the Heat only three times this season, and their one remaining chance to measure themselves against the best team in the Eastern Conference will come April 15 in the 79th game of the season.

By then, in all likelihood, the Celtics will have locked up a playoff spot. And with a veteran core that includes Pierce, Walker, Ricky Davis, Raef LaFrentz and Gary Payton, nobody will be taking Boston lightly.

“We’re a very deep team, a more talented team than we had my first time around,” Walker said.