True enough, but the streak was also a real blessing because the more they lost the more of those lottery balls would be popping around with their name on them when it came time to select who would be the owner of the first draft choice and likely the rights to Ohio State's 7-foot big man, the 19-year-old Oden. Most NBA scouts believe Oden — along with the 6-foot-9 Durant of Texas — will be an immediate impact player despite playing only one season of big-time college basketball and perhaps no team in the NBA could use such a player more than the Celtics. The Celts have struggled to find themselves for the better part of two decades with no real luck and that lack of luck continued Wednesday when they beat the Bucks, but considering their general ineptitude this season it was very likely only a temporary setback unless Bucks' coach Terry Storrs is right about them.

"The Celtic team we played tonight didn't lose 18 in a row,'' he said after his team had played so poorly they made sure they wouldn't lose 19 in a row. "Getting Paul Pierce back at a high level and Wally Szczerbiak (who both had been out for most of the losing streak), they are a good team with those players when they're healthy. They were hungry for a win and got a lot of confidence and went from there.''

No one expects one victory will lead to some sort of second-half resurrection, no second-half run away from those lottery balls. No one, that is, but the young Celtics, who can be excused for this because, well, they really don't know any better.

"The second half of the season, we want to get on some different kind of streaks,'' said Gerald Green, who was eight-of-nine including five-for-five from behind the 3-point line to help drag the Celtics to victory. "We want some winning streaks.''

No, no, a thousand times no. Win a game here and there if they like, but winning streaks? Absolutely not because the last time the Celtics were in this position after winning only 15 games was 1997 and they still didn't come close to landing Tim Duncan because the lottery balls, like the basketball balls, all bounced the wrong way for them. That could certainly happen again because no amount of losses guarantee they'll get the first pick in the draft but one thing that's sure is the more losses the better, at least for the purpose of long-term improvement.

Teams cannot improve themselves significantly in the NBA any more once they slip as badly as the Celtics have unless they reach the gutter. There is no middle ground because of the way the salary cap is set up. So if they want to have any chance of reliving the past glories when they were one of the league's dominate teams there's only one way for the Boston Celtics to do it. Don't repeat too many performances like Wednesday night's.

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