But he made no predictions as the Phils go into Game 6 tonight.

"Take it a game at a time," 'Sheed said. "They've got the bats for it. They've got the pitching for it."

Wallace, the pride of Simon Gratz High, is just getting started with his newest team. He is being projected as the off-the-bench catalyst, the role in which James Posey helped the Celtics win the NBA championship two seasons ago. He can roam the perimeter, he can set up on the low block. Last night, he burned the Sixers for 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting, draining six of eight three-pointers, taking six rebounds and playing without a turnover for 23 minutes, 56 seconds.

Home, he said, is special.

"A lot of friends and family don't get the opportunity to see me play," Wallace said. "Everybody can't get that League Pass and all that stuff."

He already has suggested that his new team can win 72 games.

"Ever since the Bulls did it, have you heard anybody say they're going for it?" he said. "Why not go for the record? Why not shoot for it?"

He brings an element the Celtics needed.

"I didn't know him," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said, "but I don't think you ever know a guy until you coach him or play with him. I did a lot of research, though, and what came back was phenomenal.

"Larry Brown [who coached Wallace in Detroit] said he was one of the smartest players he's ever coached, one of the best teammates and that his teammates loved him. His IQ - you don't believe it until you coach him. He talks [on the court], and that makes our defense even better."

But what about Wallace's reputation of piling up technical fouls and letting his emotions get in his way? He drew a technical with 4.5 seconds left in the third quarter.

No problem, Rivers insisted.

"You know that [going in]," he said. "I'm not going to try and change that. I'm not going to try and change him. Part of the reason he's good is his fire. You walk that line. Listen, he's a grown man; I'm not in the business of changing grown men, because you don't. We are who we are at this point in our lives."

Nor has Rivers had to concern himself with explaining the Celtics' ways.

"He does that anyway," Rivers said. "He passes; sometimes he overpasses. He stretches the floor. The only thing I've talked about is his responsibility to his teammates, to be as careful as he can. He's emotional."

And then Rivers laughed, acknowledging, "He incites me."

The Celtics, because of their vast experience and because of Rivers' approach, seem to float above situations that could be distracting. Never mind backup big man Glen Davis sitting out with a right thumb injured in a seemingly childish altercation with a close friend. Never mind all the back-and-forth negotiations that ultimately led to Rajon Rondo signing a 5-year contract extension worth $55 million. Never mind the trash-talking between Rondo and New Orleans star guard Chris Paul, which led to some monitoring by NBA officials after Paul tried to follow Rondo into the locker room Sunday night.

Rondo vs. Paul as a potential distraction?

"No, it's been silly," Rivers said. "Jokingly, I said, 'Let 'em fight.' Use the 180 [pounds]-and-under rule; if they get in an argument, you should let 'em fight. It's impossible for them to hurt each other.

"It's probably a good thing for both; they're very competitive, they're very alike. Both probably carried it too far. There's nothing wrong with the competitive part of that; you want that. They don't know how to stop; they don't have a turnoff button. They will. I don't think any of us did when we were young."

Princeton, then and nowCeltics broadcaster Tom Heinsohn, asked about the Sixers' read-and-react Princeton offense, remembered that his old Celtics team had a backdoor option for every play they ran, "but we didn't really use the back door until late, after we spent the night getting the defenders to lean in. We never called it the Princeton, but [legendary Princeton coach] Pete Carril used to spend a week with us every season."

Bear of a defenseDoc Rivers would like to see the best-ever Celtics defense.

"We're not going around talking about it," he said. "I [reference] the '85 Bears, since I'm from Chicago. You hear that name, what do you think? You say 'the '85 Bears,' most people say the greatest defense, one of the best ever.

"That's a good goal for us, because if you can achieve that, all the other stuff happens for you." *

For more Sixers coverage, read the

Daily News' Sixers blog, Sixerville, at

http://go.philly.com/sixerville.