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Celtics coach Doc Rivers wants to make sure his team is in game shape.With Doc Rivers questioning their conditioning, the Celtics were run ragged at Monday's practice:

When the curtains go up and reporters are able to view the final moments of Boston Celtics practice, the team is almost always engaged in 5-on-5 work to close out the session.

Not Monday.

The Celtics finished a spirited two-hour session by running no-dribble, three-man weaves up and down the court, players sprinting from one end to the other -- tagging a coach's hand -- then racing back in the opposite direction while being unable to put the ball on the ground.

Asked about the session, head coach Doc Rivers noted, "It was long and it was a ton of running. That was done on purpose."

It wasn't hard to read between the lines. Rivers isn't particularly thrilled with his team's conditioning and overall game shape, so he put them through a different sort of Boston Marathon.

As Rajon Rondo declared after the practice, "We got up and down a lot more than usual."

And the ball rack got less use than usual.

"You have to be in shape first," Rivers said. "We can have all the intensity you want, and I think some of our guys do, but then after three minutes, when your lungs hurt, you're no longer thinking about intensity. You're thinking about survival. 'How can I get through these next five minutes?' And you're not playing the same.

"I think some of our [struggles are] conditioning and we have to get in better shape. And some of it is we have to be a more physical team, and maybe that's conditioning as well."

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