Celtics guard Rajon Rondo completes the game-tying alley-oop over Miami's Mario Chalmers Wednesday night. (AP)

A day after the Celtics forced overtime with an inbound alley-oop layin from Paul Pierce to Rajon Rondo, Celtics fans are still buzzing about “The Play.” It took less than a second to execute, but it’s sure to be talked about the rest of the season.

On Thursday, Doc Rivers explained the keys to this offensive strategy on WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan show.

Picking the passer: After running through the play in practice, Rivers knew Pierce was the right man for the role.

“We ran it once, might have been last year or two years ago, and it didn’t work. It worked to the point that Rondo was open and we threw the pass off mark. It actually went into overtime. We work on that play occasionally, like once every 10 practices. Paul is the only guy that can make the pass. Every time we use someone else it’s a bad pass. But it was good that all those guys were there.”

“The good thing with Paul, because he is such a threat as a player, they rarely put a big on him. A lot of time, like what we did in Golden State where we put the two bigs on the ball, teams don’t want to do that just in case there is enough time for Paul to come back and get the ball. They usually put his guy on him and that’s why we use him.”

Watching the clock: Six-tenths of a second may not seem like a lot of time to pull of a daring shot, but it was more than enough for the Celtics.

“We’ve done it with 0.4 because it’s just a tap. Even at 0.3 you have a chance.”

Selecting the secret weapon: The Heat were caught off guard when Pierce lobbed the ball to the smallest guy on the team.

“Rondo is usually the best guy to do it, because he’s the guy that no one thinks you are going to do it with. That’s what we try to choose. Ray [Allen] is the other guy, surprisingly, because no one thinks you are going to throw a lob pass to Ray, either. So, it’s usually one of those two guys.”

Testing the guinea pigs: Rivers had stumped his own players in practice to ensure it could work against their opponents.

“We just disguise it. It’s the same play that you could run like 10 different ways and we just give it different formations. That’s what we do in practice.”

For more on “The Play,” read the entire transcript or listen to the complete audio interview.

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