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By Gary Dzen, Boston.com Staff Three games in, the Celtics and 76ers are beginning to separate.And that not just a reference to the blowout. A win likeWednesday night's 107-91 drubbing in Game 3 will bring about thatconclusion, but it's about more than the score. Little, pointeddetails about how both sides approach the game of basketballstarting to emerge. We're beginning to understand just who the Celtics, and the Sixers,really are. The series is the ultimate study in contrasts. The Celtics are old;the Sixers are young. The Celtics have stars; the Sixers have ateam concept. But the main difference that's emerged is that theCeltics are trying to prove to others that they can win thechampionship. The Sixers are trying to prove it to themselves. On the surface, both teams are fighting for the same thing. It's asecond-round playoff series, with a chance to advance to theEastern Conference Finals and meet the winner of the Heat andPacers. Most teams don't make it this far. Which is exactly whatSixers coach Doug Collins mentioned to his team during the thirdquarter of Game 3 Wednesday night. "There are a lot of teams not playing right now," said Collins, theaudio captured by TNT's cameras. "I don't want anybody to put theirhead down. Everybody put their heads up." Philadelphia was being blitzed with a run that would span thesecond and third quarters, a run where the Celtics would ultimatelyput 61 points on the scoreboard to Philadelphia's 34. The game wasslipping away from the Collins' team, and he knew he needed to givethem an encouraging talk. Despite the pep rally feel of the thing,heads remained down and effort remained a problem for Philadelphiaplayers. Doc Rivers rarely has that problem with his team. The Celticshaven't faced the kind of deficit in the playoffs that the Sixersfaced Wednesday night, but Rivers's huddle, also mic'd up by TNT,provided a total contrast in approach. With his team leading bydouble-digits, Rivers calmly urged his team to do one thing. "Rondo, defense," Rivers said. "Paul, defense now." While Collins is faced with the task of appealing to his youngteam's psyche on a nightly basis, Rivers is allowed to just coach.The Celtics have very few guys who need to be coached up. Of theones they do have, only Avery Bradley plays crucial minutes. JaJuanJohnson has been inactive, and fellow rookie E'Twaun Moore has onlyseen garbage time. In a private moment after Game 3, Celticsgeneral manager Danny Ainge took Bradley aside and explained to himthe ebbs and flows of playoff basketball, urging Bradley not to betoo down on himself after a performance where he failed to score in20 minutes of play. Bradley could have been emotional after a sub-par game, but he wasone player of 15. Philadelphia has a roster of players who havealternated between tight, down, carefree, and careless in threegames. Twice their unpredictability got them to within a point ofthe favored Celtics. Wednesday night, it got them nowhere. "Right now this is all new for us," said Collins. "We're going tolearn from this and hopefully be better in Game 4." Of course it doesn't hurt the Celtics that in addition to havingemotional maturity, they have legitimate stars. Paul Pierce, RajonRondo, and Kevin Garnett combined for 74 points in Game 3. It wasthe first time all year those three stars each scored more than 20points in a game, and it highlighted just how much a game and aseries can be swayed by the great play of a handful of a fewplayers. It's no secret the Sixers don't have that one big player, andthat's led some pundits to dismiss Philadelphia. With that doubtcomes the question about whether or not the Celtics and Sixersthemselves believe Philly has a chance. Collins didn't help subdue that theory in his postgame pressconference. "You can tell with them," said Collins. " I think they're lookingat the other series a little bit, seeing Chris Bosh being out. Ithink they see a tremendous opportunity for themselves." Rivers denied that his team wasn't giving the proper respect totheir opponent. "Well that's not true, obviously," said Rivers. "They're a youngteam, they are an athletic team, and they create really toughmatchups. And I think that is overlooked with this team. I thinkit's easier to look at the Miami's and the Oklahoma City's, and yousee the Durants and LeBrons and you see the star power. And so youimmediately give that team respect. Not the players, but the media,everyone. When you don't see the All-Stars, a la the DetroitPistons, you tend to think they aren't as good. And that isn'ttrue." Public perception doesn't matter in the series, but internalperception does. And after three games, it's clear that these twoteams have vastly different views of themselves. "I mean we're chasing something special," said Celtics guard KeyonDooling, who has become the unofficial team spokesman after Pierce."We're all extremely motivated to win. This season, with the shortseason, the lockout season, it was kind of a build-up process forus. The younger athletic teams started a lot faster than us. Weheard the old comments. But we stayed the course." The Sixers are younger and more athletic. They're experiencing theprocess for the first time, and it's begun to show. They're doingtheir learning on the fly, and they're going to live and die by howquickly they absorb it all. After the game, Rondo walked through the locker room with a boombox. He didn't blare the music for long, but he made it clear thatthe Celtics were OK with celebrating, for a time. And then themusic stopped, and Celtics players went about their business oftalking to the media, packing up, and going home. 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