Danny Ainge talks potential Celtics comeback

No team in the history of the NBA has won a playoff series after being down 0-3 but Celtics team President Danny Ainge thinks there's a first time for everything.

“Hey, listen, nobody likes being down 0-3,” Ainge said yesterday. “Nobody’s come back from 0-3. But there’s always a first time for something.

“But right now we’ve just been beaten in three games by a team that has played better. Their offense and their defense has been better than ours. Carmelo (Anthony) and J.R. Smith and Raymond Felton have been terrific and very challenging for us to match up with.”

“We have had trouble even at full strength over the past few years with scoring in the fourth quarter, and our defense has been our identity,” Ainge said. “We have been a defensive-minded team. Even in stretches this year, defense was our strength, but I think we don’t really have that identity right now, so we’re searching.

“We’re playing small. We’re trying to play shooters — any way to score, because our scoring and our offense have been exposed in this series. And you’ve got to give the Knicks credit. I think that their switching has confused us, has taken away the movement that we ideally want to play with.”