Shira Springer of the Boston Globe reports: Tony's Battie's sore right knee has flared up again. However, he said that any surgery would most likely happen after Boston's season is over.

Battie, who has missed the last 4 games and 14 overall this season with the injury, believes that when the swelling goes down, he will be ok.

''This is the third episode so the doctors have commented on a look at surgery, but they don't know,'' said Battie. ''But at least some exploratory surgery just to see what exactly is going on. It's not written in stone that we're going to go in and fix X and Z. That has come up as an option, as an alternative.

''But like I've said, if it's up to me, some type of rehab or something like that can get me through the problem. But if not, I've got to listen to the doctors and take other measurements.''

The last time the Celtics lost five games in a row, their head coach resigned. For the first time since Jim O'Brien took over, Boston dropped its fifth consecutive game, a 96-91 setback to the Utah Jazz last night. But neither O'Brien nor any of his players plan on going away, with the playoffs around the corner. Antoine Walker talked about building toward better play before the postseason.

Whatever O'Brien told his players after the loss to the Denver Nuggets Saturday worked in the first half last night, but it could not sustain the Celtics through the second half. The Boston team that took the floor at the Delta Center before a crowd of 18,795 was noticeably more aggressive, clawing for rebounds, and diving to the floor for loose balls, sometimes two at a time. Early on, the Celtics overcame foul trouble that plagued Paul Pierce and Mark Blount. It appeared nothing would derail the Celtics' desire for a win, not even the absence of Tony Battie, who sat out because of increased pain in his right knee.

After Jerry Sloan ripped into the Jazz on Saturday and again Sunday, questioning the commitment of his team, Karl Malone said Sloan should name names.
     
"Say who it is," Malone said.
     
But that is not about to happen.

The first time, Matt Harpring set a screen for Karl Malone, then stepped back, accepted a John Stockton pass and buried an open 21-foot jumper.

The next, Harpring set his pick for Malone, then curled into the lane to take yet another Stockton pass, hitting the jumper again, this one from about nine feet out.
     
The latter gave the Jazz a 93-88 lead on Boston with 48.6 seconds to go in an eventual 95-91 Delta Center victory over the Celtics on Monday night, helping Utah win for the fourth straight time, improve to 41-29 and maintain its hold on sixth place in the NBA's Western Conference standings.
     
But perhaps more importantly than all of that, it confirmed what Jazz coach Jerry Sloan has been harping on so much lately.

The Boston Celtics adore the 3-point shot, and some of their infatuation appeared to rub off on the Jazz Monday night.

The Celtics rank just 22nd in the league in 3-point percentage, yet they attempt the shot more than any other team in the NBA by a wide, wide margin.

The Jazz attempt the shot less than any other team in the league, yet they appeared enamored with it on Monday.

Calling for better offensive execution from his team over the past week, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan got all he needed when it mattered most Monday night.

Nursing a one-point lead in the final minutes, the Jazz ran their fist-one play to perfection twice in a row, with Matt Harpring sinking open jumpers both times to spark the Jazz to a 96-91 victory over the Boston Celtics at the Delta Center.

"When it came down to the end of the ballgame," Sloan said, "I thought our guys really did a good job of executing our offense.

With two simple jump shots, Matt Harpring erased Boston's chances of an upset and erased the Celtics' place in the record book.
   
Harpring connected twice in the game's final minute, on a wide-open 20-foot jumper and a simple 12-foot curl, helping the Jazz collect their fourth straight victory, 96-91 over Boston. In doing so, 41-29 Utah is assured no worse than a break-even record for the 20th consecutive season, breaking the Celtics' record of 19 straight.
   
"It's a tribute to consistency," said owner Larry Miller, referring to John Stockton, Karl Malone and Jerry Sloan, who have been together for 18 of those years. But on Monday, a couple of newcomers -- Harpring, who connected on 11 of 17 shots for a game-high 24 points, and Calbert Cheaney, who scored 12 and limited the Celtics' No. 1 weapon, guard Paul Pierce, to one second-half basket -- did much of the work.

Irv Moss writes about the rainbow skyline uniforms... and the Denver win over Boston.

It was just one victory, and one that followed a brutal stretch in which they had lost 13 of 15 games. So the Indiana Pacers knew better than to make declarations after Wednesday's 102-72 win over Boston.

"We don't want to talk too fast," Jermaine O'Neal warned.

Still, wasn't this how they used to do it, back in the days when they were regarded as a league power? With passing, balance and depth, supported by all-out effort?

With 15,896 fans at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Pacers turned in one of their more uplifting performances of the season.

They dominated the Celtics for most of the 48 minutes, and unlike most games this season when they've amassed comfortable leads, they didn't let up long enough to make things interesting.

Six players scored in double figures, led by Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest, who scored 18 each. The bench contributed 34 points. The Pacers committed a season-low seven turnovers and rang up 27 assists. And they shot better than 45 percent for just the second time in the past 23 games, mostly because their ball movement was good enough to get easy shots.

"It was good to see the team come together collectively," coach Isiah Thomas said. "It's the most sustained (effort) we've had in quite awhile. The last few weeks we've had five or six good minutes, then all of a sudden we'd lose it. Tonight it was a total 48-minute game of offensive and defensive execution."

The victory allowed the Pacers (40-28) to look ahead rather than over their shoulders in the Eastern Conference race. They're in fourth place, two games ahead of the Celtics, and tied the season series at two to prevent the Celtics -- who fell behind New Orleans into sixth in the conference -- from taking outright control of the tiebreaker for playoff seedings.

They're three games behind conference leader Detroit and one game second-place Philadelphia and No. 3 New Jersey.

"We're not looking down," Al Harrington said. "We're looking at who we can catch.

"I can't wait to play Friday (against Memphis). I wish we had a game (tonight) to keep this going."

The only negative from the game was the flagrant foul awarded to Artest just five seconds after tip-off, when he hacked Celtics' guard Paul Pierce on the head on a breakaway layup. If upheld by the league office, Artest will be suspended for two more games -- Friday against the Grizzlies and Saturday at Atlanta.

He's already been suspended for 10, including two of the previous five.

The Pacers felt they began building momentum for this win in practice on Tuesday. Not only was everyone present, a rarity given all the personal issues they have been dealing with the past few weeks, but the urgency of their situation forced them to come together.

"Whatever we've got personally, we've got to handle," Jamaal Tinsley said. "Just having guys around and seeing each other again makes us play harder, I guess."

Tinsley was the primary impetus behind the quick start, picking up seven of his eight assists in the first period, when the Pacers jumped to a 29-13 lead. That's when Reggie Miller, a non-factor offensively most of the month, scored 11 of his 13 points.

"When he's playing well, that's when we're really unbeatable," Harrington said of Tinsley. "He gets everybody involved. When he comes out passing the ball like that it's kind of contagious. It makes everyone want to pass."

The Celtics (38-30) made it easier for the Pacers by hitting just 5-of-24 3-pointers. They've hit just 9-of-64 over the past three games. Such errant shooting helped the Pacers gain a 16-8 edge on fast-break points.

Just one win, of course. But it left enough good vibes for the Pacers to think the worst might be behind them.

"When we share the ball and trust in each other we can be a tough team to beat," O'Neal said. "Hopefully we can continue with that same effort for the next 14 games. We're right there, and everybody in front of us, we play.

"This makes everybody feel good again. Winning can be contagious like losing can."

Indiana Pacers star Ron Artest was suspended for 2 games by the NBA according to Sekou Smith of the Indianapolis Star.

Artest was called for a flagrant foul against Celtic's guard Paul Pierce just moments after the opening tip. Since Artest went over the 5-point flagrant foul limit 13 days ago, he has been suspended twice. Any flagrant foul he commits the rest of the season will result in an automatic 2 game suspension.

Artest has accumulated eight flagrant foul points this season, twice as many as any other player in the NBA.