"Last season was the first time in his five years in the NBA that Nate Robinson felt what it was like to win.

The Knicks were the league's model franchise for dysfunction, and that manifested in four out of five 50-loss seasons. When Robinson arrived in Boston via a trade deadline deal in February, it was like he was handed a "Get out of the cellar free'' card.

Thrown into the pressure cooker of a championship-driven franchise, Robinson noticed the difference.

"The main thing that stood out to me was their will to win,'' he said on a conference call yesterday. "They expect to win every night. I was like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' Being with the Knicks, we just went out and we just played. We just went out to play and to have fun and compete. It was a little tougher for us to win over there, with the guys that we had and all that mess over there that we were in, knowing we had guys over there that could play, but couldn't bring it together. That was just a bunch of mess. As a team, when I was with the Knicks, we loved each other but we just never could jell and have that team chemistry like the Celtics have.''"