"Kendrick Perkins managed to amuse the media yesterday when he said he's now giving advice to fellow big man Rasheed Wallace regarding how to avoid his seventh technical foul of the playoffs.

Both players have six, one shy of an automatic one-game suspension.

Paul Pierce, meanwhile, was dead serious on the matter.

"Whatever works because we need both those guys," the Celtics captain said yesterday as the team prepared for Game 5 of the NBA Finals tonight at the Garden. "Those technicals, they can hurt you if we lose either one of those guys. Whatever Kendrick does for Sheed, whatever Sheed does for Kendrick, I hope they realize we need these guys in there for all of them, and whatever they can do, I'm all for it."

Doc Rivers admitted that Perkins has done a very good job of biting his tongue since his seventh tech was rescinded during the Eastern Conference finals against Orlando.

"He's been terrific," the Celtics coach said. "I thought in the last game . . . I thought there was a lot of extra stuff going on . . . and I thought Perk did a great job of walking away. It's clearly the new Perk. I hadn't seen that side of him.

"The good news is we know he can do it, and the bad news is now we know he can do it, we're going to expect him to be one of those type of guys.""