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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: PISTONS v CELTICS

May 24, 2008

Doc Rivers

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game Three

Q. Doc, you guys just seemed to take care of this from the start with your aggression. Can you talk about just how important that is for just developing your flow.
COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, it was great. And it was both ends, which was really important. We talked a lot about both ends of the floor over the last 48 hours, offensively making ball change sides. I thought we did it a lot. We got great shots, the movement. Scoring the 25 in the first quarter I thought gave our guys a lot of confidence, and then just taking away shots. Our thought was try to defend the post and have contested jump shots, and I thought we did that.

Q. Doc, can you just talk about at halftime, you guys had a nice lead but obviously you're playing a great team. What did you say to your guys?
COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, you know they're going to make a run. These guys are not shaken by much and we knew that. I thought we came out at the beginning of the half. The first two minutes not great, after that I thought we played terrific. We got the big lead. We didn't close out the third quarter. I thought that was one little stretch that got them hope. Then they went to the zone and the pressing and the trapping. Instead of attacking it, I just thought we were trying to beat the pressure. And then with a 24-second clock you try to do that, you don't have enough time to try to score. I thought we were trying to hold on to the game instead of just keep playing. That's the only negative part about the game.
Other than that, everything was positive. The defensive pressure was terrific all game. The offensive ball movement was terrific all game. We play like that every night, we like our chances.

Q. Can you just talk about Kendrick Perkins. I guess you told him to be more active when they doubled Kevin.
COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, the last game they basically ran off Rajon and ran off Perk. So today that's what we did. We really showed him on film first, where they were coming from, and we basically told him that they would have to be active and aggressive to the basket, and it was going to be very important because the more they did that, the more Ray would be open, the more Paul would be open, the more Kevin would be open. They didn't do a very good job of that in the last game and they took advantage of that. I thought our guys took advantage of that tonight. I thought Paul was looking for him at times when he had shots in the first half. I told him to be a scorer first, and if they trap then be ready.
But it was good. I was really happy for both those guys. Perk was terrific tonight with that energy, dunking in, looking for the ball, and so was Rajon.

Q. Can you just talk about doing a better job of taking advantage of your inside game offensively tonight?
COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, it was just the ball movement. It was the extra pass. You know, they got some early fouls and were really attacked at to try to get them off the floor. But we didn't just go to the post. We started the ball on one side, swung it on the other side, and we kept setting picks to get Kevin down on the post to get bodies off of him, and the same thing with Paul, and it was nice. It was the way we should play.

Q. Can you talk about with Ray on the bench with two and with Kevin on the bench with two what your bench players did.
COACH DOC RIVERS: They were great. I thought that was the biggest part of the game for us, and we called a time-out, and I said, hey, guys, it's not a big deal, I was going to sub him anyway. Probably not true (laughter), but I just told them, not a big deal, just run our offense. Just run it and let the ball find the open shooter and we're fine.
The first couple minutes we struggled and then we caught our wind, the ball moved, we changed sides, guys got shots. Pose made two terrific cuts out of the time and got us one three-point play, and I thought that gave them confidence. Amazing, the game is strange sometimes, and sometimes you've got to get two of your big three in foul trouble to get the others to play, and maybe that was one of the reasons.

Q. You had particularly good play from PJ Brown and Sam Cassell. In a situation where things are starting to go crazy, how does their veteran experience come in?
COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, it's big, especially with PJ. Sam, the first two minutes he was rattled. Not just he was rattled, he just hadn't played. That's why I left him out on the floor. I was going to let him play through it and he did. And then he got it going. It was nice to get him back in this series, just for the fact that he can handle the ball, he can handle the pressure that they're putting on us, and that's nice for our second unit. We needed him in this game so our second unit could run their offense.

Q. Can you talk about just what Kevin has given you throughout the playoffs, 20 and 10. Perk was talking about before the game about how he's so dialed in before the game and gets those guys dialed in and ready to play.
COACH DOC RIVERS: He's just phenomenal. Obviously you see his play, but just his intensity and his focus, sometimes -- I thought down the stretch I thought his intensity was almost getting in the way of him because he wanted it so bad. But in the locker room before games and the shootarounds before games, he's our rock, he really is. He keeps everybody focused. It's deadly serious, and that's nice to have a guy like that.

Q. Were you perplexed by the inability to win a road game? And was there ever a point where you thought you might not get one?
COACH DOC RIVERS: No, I said it before the game. I wasn't -- I just felt good. I felt good. I told you guys before the game, I told you yesterday, we've been a very good road team all year. We just lost in the playoffs. Nobody talked about it with our team, they really didn't. They focused on the next game.
Maybe losing at home and taking away our security blanket made them focus more. But I didn't think anybody on our team ever thought of it as this gorilla that everybody else was talking about. I think our guys just assumed that we would win eventually on the road. The key is, like I said before, staying alive long enough so you can win a road game.

Q. Just carrying that a little farther, had you lost this game, it would have been the first time you had been behind in any series this postseason. How encouraging is it to see your team respond this way on the road, given that reality?
COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, we don't have to deal with that reality, so I didn't really think about it, honestly. The way we looked at it is take this game first and play it and see what happens, and then approach the next game the same way, whether we win or lose, and that's what I told them before the game.

End of FastScripts

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