Travis Outlaw scored on a dunk with three seconds left in the second quarter. Play was stopped when the Celtics began waving their arms and pointing to the fact there were six Trail Blazers on the court.

The referees convened and assessed Portland a technical foul, which Ray Allen converted. But, the refs explained - not to the Celtics' satisfaction, mind you - because they had not spotted the extra man beforehand, the basket would be allowed to stand.

Said referee Mike Callahan in a postgame statement: ``If we would have caught the six men on the court before they made goal, then there would have been no score. We would have called a technical foul on Portland and stopped play. After the technical foul shot (by Boston), Portland would have inbounded the ball as they were in possession before the stoppage.''

The statement did little to appease the Celtics.

``Their explanation was worse,'' Rivers said. ``They messed up, sorry.''

Much to Rivers' chagrin, the league didn't change its take on the play when reached for comment yesterday.

``As our crew chief said (Tuesday) night, this is not a correctable error and therefore the play was administered properly by our crew,'' NBA senior vice president of referee operations Ron Johnson said. ``It was an unfortunate incident and moving forward we will learn from it. We continue to strive to get every call right.''

Allen was calmly livid after the game.

``I thought that was a disgrace,'' Allen said. ``I've never experienced anything like that since I've been in the NBA. Just knowing that it took place . . . it's just uncalled for. To lose two points like that, it is a disgrace.''

Paul Pierce was almost forgiving.

``Definitely I've never seen anything like it,'' he said. ``I still don't understand how they count the bucket but, hey, referees make mistakes.''

Kevin Garnett, who was assessed a double technical (along with Portland's LaMarcus Aldridge) with 22 seconds remaining, didn't focus his criticism of the officiating on any one play.

``That's one of the worst games officiated I've seen in a while, man,'' Garnett said.