BOSTON (AP) – The Boston Celtics’ first division title in 13 years helped earn basketball operations director Danny Ainge a three-year contract extension Friday. Losing the “sick feeling” Ainge said has lingered since the team’s playoff collapse is going to take a little more winning.

Ainge’s contract had been scheduled to expire after next season, but the extension will keep him with the team through the 2008-2009 season, Celtics spokesman Jeff Twiss said.

Terms of the deal were not released.

The extension comes two weeks after the Celtics were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the lower-seeded Indiana Pacers. Ainge said he and coach Doc Rivers were disgusted by the team’s finish, including a 27-point loss at home in the final game.

“We’ve been in sports our whole lives and that’s just going to motivate us to be better,” Ainge said.

The poor finish didn’t obscure the team’s improvement during Ainge’s two-year tenure, said owner Wyc Grousbeck. The team finished 10 games below .500 last season, compared with 45-37 this year.

“We were all aware that we might have ups and downs, but if you don’t take the long term view, you’re sure to have downs,” Grousbeck said. “We felt very strongly that we had a high quality guy and a winner everywhere he’s gone. We knew we wanted to back him.”

Ainge, a former Celtics guard who played on two championship teams in the 1980s, was hired in May 2003 as the team’s executive director of basketball operations.

His first season on the job saw the resignation of coach Jim O’Brien, who clashed with Ainge over the team’s direction, and the trade of star Antoine Walker to Dallas. The team was then swept from the first round of the NBA playoffs by the Pacers.

This year, Ainge was credited with a strong draft, including forward Al Jefferson and guards Delonte West and Tony Allen, all of whom played significant minutes as rookies. He hired Rivers to replace interim coach John Carroll and reacquired Walker in a midseason trade with Atlanta.

The team went on to win its first Atlantic Division title since the 1991-1992 season. Still, Boston was again eliminated by Indiana in the first round of the playoffs.

Ainge has more tough decisions to make during this offseason, including whether to re-sign veteran point guard Gary Payton and Walker, who has said he wants to stay in Boston.

Ainge was also critical of his players’ on-court behavior during the Indiana series. Walker grabbed referee Tom Washington in Game 3 and was suspended for one game. And captain Paul Pierce elbowed Pacers guard Jamaal Tinsley in the closing seconds of Game 6 and was ejected.

After the season, Ainge didn’t rule out a trade involving Pierce, but said he wasn’t eager to part with the Celtics’ leading scorer.

“I’m not doing my job if I’m not entertaining, listening to offers” to trade Pierce, Ainge said then. “I just don’t see it happening.”

AP-ES-05-20-05 1734EDT