"The Celtics, in their current 0-2 predicament, look more than ever like an aging team that's on the last roundup.

Ray Allen, however, disagrees.

"Every year you have an opportunity," he said after yesterday's practice. "I don't look at it like it's a last hurrah. When I got here in '07, everyone was saying is this your chance, your year, and now it's four years later. Every year after '07 and '08 is the same question, so it's really between me, Kevin (Garnett) and Paul (Pierce).

"We feel good about who we are, what we're doing, and just staying true," said Allen. "One day we'll say OK it's over, and that's when we'll talk about it and dissect what we've done, but we're never going to sell ourselves down the river. We've won a lot of games, and we feel we can continue to do it for many more years.""