"Stephon Marbury was wide-eyed and sweaty when he was the last man off the practice floor yesterday.

His first Celtics session had gone predictably long, not ending until he went through a separate tutorial with fellow New York high school star Armond Hill. He had to work on coming off the pin-down picks his new teammates will be setting.

As Marbury spoke, he still was breathing hard even though he’d been on a diligent workout regimen all year. But this was, he was realizing, quite different. This was Celtics abuse.

“Oh yeah, but it’s good,” Marbury said, summoning the energy for a brief smile. “It was a hard practice today defensively. Defensively this team is amazing. They work at it. They get after it. That’s what it’s about. That’s why they won the championship.”

For now, the road is not smooth for someone anointed as a star/savior in all his other basketball stops.

“I know I’m going to have hiccups,” Marbury said. “Adjusting to these guys is difficult because they play at a high level. It’s not a level where I’m used to. I haven’t played at this level. I’ve never played at a championship level before, so for me, adjusting my style of play, adjusting how I prepare . . . it’s all the same as far as going in with a mind-set, but doing things the way they do things is (what’s) very important.

“And it’s different because I’m coming in while guys are in playoff shape basically. Guys are ready to play at a totally different level. I think that there’s three different levels - preseason, regular season, playoff. I’ve been thrown right into the fire, so it’s difficult but it’s fun.”"