Danny Ainge (AP)

In his weekly interview with WEEI’s The Big Show, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge discussed the surprising start to Greg Stiemsma’s career, the maturation process of Rajon Rondo and a possible debut date for Mickael Pietrus.

Stiemsma, a 26-year-old former Defensive Player of the Year in the D-League for Sioux Falls Skyforce, has emerged as a legitimate NBA center early in his career. Ainge was asked about Stiemsma’s performance.

“He’s played very well from the first day of training camp,” said Ainge of Stiemsma, who is averaging 4.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in his first five NBA games. “He’s been a positive influence on our team, our coaches have really liked him, he earned their respect right away. He’s been good.”

Ainge was asked if he was ever concerned that Rondo would be at all affected by the rumors that had the point guard potentially being swapped for Chris Paul.

“I sat down with Rondo when he got back into town, when the lockout ended, and I just told him the truth of what was going on. And that was it,” Ainge said. “I’ve had conversations since, told him exactly what was happening. … I was not trying to trade Rajon Rondo. There’s a big difference between trying to acquire a player and trying to trade a player. Rondo knows what I was trying to do, and he knows I wasn’t shopping him around and trying to trade him, as has been reported. There’s a big difference.”

As for Rondo’s early-season performance (15.3 points per game, league-best 10.7 assists per game), Ainge credits the point guard’s work ethic during the lockout.

“I think that that he was very motivated, we had received reports all summer how hard he was working this offseason,” said Ainge. “He showed up in great shape and he came out of the gates playing fantastic basketball for us, and he had a great training camp and he has the right mindset when he goes out on the court.”

Ainge also told Glenn Ordway and Michael Holley that Mickael Pietrus (knee surgery) could debut for the Celtics next Wednesday vs. the Mavericks at the Garden.

To hear the interview click on The Big Show audio on demand page. For more Celtics news visit weei.com/celtics.

With Lawrence Frank on his way to Detroit, could Larry Brown take his place next to Doc Rivers?

Larry Brown is 70 years old. He’s the only coach in history to win an NCAA title and NBA title as a head coach. He’s the only coach in history to take eight teams to the NBA playoffs. He’s been in the Hall of Fame for nine years. There is literally nothing left to prove.

But Larry Brown still wants to coach. And it’s easy for you and me to wonder what it is exactly that makes a 70-year-old man with tens of millions of dollars and an already cemented place in history want to get on a plane and fly to Milwaukee on a Tuesday in February, but we see it all the time. It never ends — Don Nelson is 71 years old, lives about three yards from the ocean in Hawaii and is hoping to get back into the mix as the coach of the Timberwolves, who have won a total of 32 games in the last two seasons.

Since being resigned to resignation (pretty sure he wasn’t going to be offered an extension by MJ) last December after a mediocre two-plus years in Charlotte, which followed his bizarre one-year disaster with the Knicks, Brown hasn’t been seen a serious candidate for any NBA head-coaching gigs and has even been dismissed when trying to land a job in college (Brown was interested in UNLV, Missouri, Oklahoma and Penn State openings but was never viewed as a legitimate candidate for any of those jobs).

So now — with thanks to a report from the very great Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports — it appears that Brown would very much be happy to give up leading man status and take on a juicy character part as lead assistant coach and de facto defensive coordinator under Doc Rivers.

Assuming that Lawrence Frank is indeed going to get the Pistons job — which strikes me as a sure way to end up as a color analyst on NBA TV in 2013 — the Celtics are going to need to fill the Tom Thibodeau/Frank role. And why not Brown, universally recognized as one of the top defensive minds of his (or any, really) generation? And, hey, didn’t Larry Brown coach one Glenn Rivers with the Clippers in 1992? It almost makes too much sense not to happen, right?

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Chris Bosh averaged a double-double in the two wins in Miami. (AP)

I’m going to steal from the great Paul Flannery and take his Three-Pointer gimmick for a spin. Stealing from Paul has turned into the norm, unfortunately, as the best Celtics beat writer in town had his computer and all his luggage stolen from the trunk of his car while having lunch (at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Factory — I know) before Game 2 in Miami on Tuesday. He’s OK, though (turns out it’s much easier to fly when all you have to carry is a CVS bag), and will be ready to go for Game 3.

But will the Celtics? Here’s three thoughts still kicking around after the first of three off-days …

(Oh, one more Flannery item before we get started. Bill Russell, as you have no doubt heard by now, will finally get a statue in his honor. Clearly the suggestion from President Obama that it was time for Boston to put up a Russell statue is the major reason why it happened, but it was Paul’s terrific column in Boston magazine last November that got the conversation started.)

1. Here’s why the Celtics are down 2-0 to the Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have a total of 147 points through two games. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett have a total of 87. That’s it. Not the refs, not Kendrick Perkins, not James Jones outscoring the Celtics’ bench by himself in Game 1.

Nope, if the Celtics are going to find a way to get back to Miami at 2-2 — which is a must for any chance to win this series — Allen/Pierce/Garnett have to give you more than we saw in Game 1 and Game 2. Allen was very good in Game 1, a non-factor in Game 2. Pierce was terrible in Game 1, hurt and terrible again in Game 2. Garnett had a six-minute stretch in the third quarter of Game 2 where he made five consecutive field goals. Other than that he’s 6-of-24 through two games.

Listen, no one thought Pierce or Allen was going to outplay LeBron or Wade in this series, and Garnett was probably a slight edge over Bosh. But for these three guys — particularly Allen and Pierce — to have been so dominated in Miami is troubling at best. In the four regular season games between the two teams the Miami Big Three averaged a total of 56.6 points per game, the Boston Big Three 54.1. Now that’s deceiving — Wade only averaged 12.8 per game, not fair to expect that — but the Pierce/Allen/Garnett trio simply have to match their regular-season output or this series will be over in four or five games.

2. I know he scowls a lot, and looks exactly the way you want a center to look, and his team is still in the playoffs so you get to that blast of nostalgia when you watch him every couple of nights, but if Kendrick Perkins was on the Celtics this series would still be two-zip, Miami. Hard to digest for the “Heart and Soul of the Defense” flag-wavers, but it’s true. Kendrick Perkins is averaging 4.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game in the playoffs (by the way, if you do a Google search on “4.4 points per game” the first match is Alexander Johnson’s Wikipedia page. Johnson played 102 games in two NBA seasons, averaging his 4.4 points. He’s now with the Sioux City Skyforce of the D-League).

And the notion that Perkins would be a threat in the middle with his defense against Wade and James doesn’t have any statistical backing. Perkins is averaging 0.6 blocks per game in the playoffs, and Oklahoma City has allowed at least 100 points in both games of the Memphis series. And Perkins was on the court last year in the first round against the Heat when Wade averaged 33.2 points.

Jermaine O’Neal has been a better player than Perkins in this postseason (6.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.6 blocks) in seven fewer minutes per game. And let’s take it easy with the intangibles angle. Much is being made now about Perkins “teaching” the Thunder how to win. It’s easy to be an intangibles guy on a team with Westbrook and Durant — if Perkins has been traded to Minnesota who would never hear from him again. This isn’t fair to Perkins — who was a solid role player for team that needed him — but he isn’t a good enough player to swing a playoff series.

3. Even down 2-0, even with the injuries to Allen, Rondo, Pierce and Shaq, this will be the best chance this team will have to beat the Heat in a playoff series. Think about it: Miami is only going to get better. Wade and James are right in the middle of their primes and are two of the three or four best players in the world, and Bosh is a 17-9 guy also in his prime. Think those three are going to get worse or better after playing together for a full season? There isn’t much cap room for Miami, but the lure of winning plus the city itself should mean a decent pool of veterans to pick from each year. The Celtics are where the late 80′s Celtics were — enough talent to win but maybe too many miles on the tires. And once little brother gets past the bully — think Celtics over 76ers, Pistons over Celtics and Bulls over Pistons — it almost never reverts back.

MIAMI — Tough to imagine this Celtics team winning 4-of-5 against the Heat, a team that did win 28 games on the road this season, so here are three things to watch for in a Game 2 that is really close to must-win territory …

(1). Doc Rivers made it clear on Monday that the Celtics are going to get Kevin Garnett (3-of-9, six points in Game 1) more involved in the offense in Game 2. They went to Garnett on Chris Bosh early — in fact on each of the Celtics’ first two possessions — but failed to continue to focus on a matchup that the Celtics feel is an advantageous one.

“Kevin is one of our featured scorers and I didn’t think we did a good job with him at all,” Rivers told the media Monday. “We got Bosh on an early foul, and then we went seven straight plays before we decided to look back to that spot. That’s not like us to do that. That was a mistake.”

Garnett isn’t ever going to take 25 shots — just isn’t that kind of player, we are talking about someone who averaged just 11.6 per game during the regular season — but the Celtics would probably like to see him somewhere close to the 16 shots he attempted in both Game 2 and Game 4 of the Knicks series.

(2). James Jones isn’t going to score 25 points again on Tuesday night. Statistically, we recognize it as an outlier. He averaged just 5.9 points during the regular season with one 20-point game (Oct. 27). But Rivers wants the Miami swingman to work a lot harder to find his shots in Game 2.

“The fact that he took seven 3-pointers without taking a dribble, when you think about it, that’s poor defense,” Rivers said. “You’ve still got to make them and that’s where you give James all the credit, he’s an excellent shooter and he made them. But to give a shooter seven 3-pointers and without having to put the ball on the floor one time, that’s tough for to handle.”

(3). The Joey Factor. After a Game 1 that was described by Rivers as “chippy” — featuring five technical fouls, a flagrant foul and an ejection — here comes Joey Crawford and his quick whistle on Tuesday night. Crawford — the lead official in Game 7 of last year’s Celtics-Lakers series — is about as old-school as it gets, which can be a good or  bad thing, depending on the situation (let us not forget his was also suspended indefinitely in 2007 after allegedly challenging Tim Duncan to a fight) . Expect a very tight game to be called, and Crawford will be happy to hand out technical fouls if he feels it might help temper potential altercations between the two teams.

Doc Rivers wasn’t exactly jubilant after watching the film of Sunday’s Game 1 loss to the Heat.

He talked before Monday’s practice about the importance of staying patient on offense — “very eager offensively and that hurt us … we were pretty much a one-option team and very rarely worked the sets” — and the importance of keeping composure, something Paul Pierce failed to do in the fourth quarter.

Rivers stressed the need to do a better job on James Jones — “The fact that he took seven 3-pointers without taking a dribble, when you think about it, that’s poor defense” — and Dwyane Wade.

In short, it wasn’t quite a sneak peak of “The Hangover: Part II” in the old film room.

And when it came to analyzing his own effort after viewing the 99-90 loss again, Rivers pointed to one decision as perhaps his biggest error.

“I’ve got to do a better job of getting Kevin [Garnett] involved,” Rivers said. “Kevin is one of our featured scorers and I didn’t think we did a good job with him at all.”

Indeed Garnett was an absolute non-factor on offense in Game 1, scoring just six points on 3-of-9 shooting. The Celtics made a concerted effort to get Garnett going early, posting him up on Chris Bosh on their first two possessions, but then went away from a matchup that the team looked at as a advantage heading into the series.

“We got Bosh on an early foul, and then we went seven straight plays before we decided to look back to that spot,” said Rivers. “That’s not like us to do that. That was a mistake.”

Garnett had plenty of success in four games vs. the Heat this season, averaging 16.5 points on 54 percent shooting. And coming off of a Game 4 win over the Knicks that saw Garnett score 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting, it seemed a fairly obvious bet that the power forward would be heavily involved in the offense.

And as much as Rivers wanted to take the blame for Garnett’s lack of productivity, there is no question that the 14-time All-Star can be too unselfish at times. The Celtics want Garnett on the attack against Bosh, and that wasn’t the nearly the case in Game 1.

“I think we’ve just got to try to tell him to be aggressive when he gets the ball in the post,” said Rajon Rondo. “He is an unselfish guy, but we want him to be aggressive and take advantage of the matchup.”

UPDATE: Pierce will not be suspended or face further disciplinary action, according to league official.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Paul Pierce – who declined to speak to reporters following Sunday’s Game 1 loss to the Heat — met with the media before the Celtics’ practice Tuesday on the campus of the University of Miami. Pierce was ejected on Sunday after picking up his second technical foul, which was assessed after he exchanged words with Dwyane Wade following an attempt by Wade to run through a screen set by Pierce.

But it was the first technical called on Pierce that has raised the idea that action from the NBA might be administered. Pierce appeared to attempt a head-butt on James Jones after the Miami swingman aggressively fouled Pierce. Pierce told the media that he expected to hear from the NBA sometime on Monday, but didn’t feel his actions warranted further action. He did, however, admit that there is always worry whenever the league is investigating the possibility of discipline.

“It’s always a concern when things happen,” Pierce said. “Right now it’s out of my control, they are going to view it the how they view it and come to a decision. I’m definitely worried because if it’s a situation where it hurts my team, then it was very selfish. It was selfish of me last night but it’ll hurt even more if the league cam with the decision to suspend me, if that’s what they thought they saw.”

Pierce — who said he was “surprised at getting kicked out” — agreed with Doc Rivers, who in his postgame press conference Sunday suggested that both Jones and Wade should have received flagrant fouls.

“I probably overreacted,” Pierce said. “Thought I was fouled excessively on both play. I thought it should have been a flagrant on both plays. But it’s up to me to keep my composure. The referees called what they saw. I need to do a better job keeping my composure. That’s it.”

MIAMI — About 90 minutes before tipoff of Game 1 between the Heat and Celtics on Sunday afternoon, Erik Spoelstra was asked about Dwayne Wade, and specifically his struggles against Boston during the regular season. Wade had averaged 12.8 points on 28.1 percent shooting in the four games.

“We need Dwyane to be effective, we need him to score,” said Spoelstra. ”More so than any other player I’ve ever been around, he can figure defenses out. … So now he’s had more time to see how Boston has played him. The first two games, not an excuse, you have to give Boston credit for defense, but he was just coming back. He’ll be able to figure it out.”

Spoelstra proved to be remarkably prescient with his pre-game thoughts, as Wade was terrific in the win, pouring in a game-high 38 points on 14-of-21 shooting.

“Dwayne is a special player, he really is,” Spoelstra said after the game. ”I’ve said this so many times, he just figures it out. He is very diligent. He has had a couple of days now to see how the Celtics would defend him. He has proven so many times during the playoffs that when the defense is at it’s best, he figures it out and finds a way to crack the code.”

Doc Rivers wasn’t thrilled about Wade’s offensive outburst, but was able to give him credit and even managed to sneak in a joke when talking about his fellow Marquette alumnus.

“It’s tough,” Rivers said when asked about defending Wade. “I thought a lot of the shots were contested and tough shots. When he makes them, he makes them. That’s why he’s the second greatest player to ever come out of Marquette.”