By Thursday morning, Danny Ainge sounded like Marlon Brando at the end of ?Apocalypse Now,? minus the horror.

He was tired, his voice dragging somewhere along the bottom of his chest, his mind a mess of salary figures and multiple player combinations. Push the Celtics director of basketball operations a little further, and he might have imagined Kevin Garnett?s head on Sebastian Telfair?s body, or the other way around.

Then the horror would have begun.

?I?m going on vacation - don?t expect to talk to me for a few days,? Ainge said more as a threat than a warning. And why not?

His roster is shallower than a kayak, but, oh, what a topside. The Celtics have what is arguably the best threesome in the NBA in Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Phoenix, San Antonio, Detroit and Dallas - proven contenders with far more legitimacy than the Celtics - will heartily disagree on ?the best three? argument.