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NBA FINALS: LAKERS v CELTICSJune 11, 2008Doc RiversLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. Two questions: Would you agree that Pau Gasol's defense is underrated? He kept dunking to a lower percentage than usual in the Western Conference final and he's doing the same in the three games versus Garnett. And second question, wasn't Pierce's knee really starting to bother him last night? DOC RIVERS: Well, I'll go with the second one. No. We're not going to use that, I can tell you that. Paul is a human being, he just didn't have a great game. I thought the Lakers did a nice job defending him. But other than that, no, I don't think there was anything wrong with his knee. I think Gasol has length but is underrated defensively. He's a long player. I thought he affected the series some in San Antonio, and that's what he does. I thought he was tremendous in the Utah series with his length. You know, he gets to the right spots, he gets long, and finishing through him and over him is not as easy as people think. So yeah, I agree. I think that part of his defense is underrated. Q. Paul and Kevin both had poor shooting nights, and yet the game still comes down to the final minutes and you still have a chance. What do you take out of that going forward, and what do you think the Lakers take out of it? DOC RIVERS: You know it's funny, I told our guys this: The losing team in that always says, as bad as we played, we had a chance to win the game. And I can see our team liked to hear that. I said, well, the Lakers are saying as bad as they played, they won the game. I said, so you can look at that either way you want, but the Lakers didn't play well either. Neither team had a very good game, and I agree with Coach Jackson, that flying out after one day and playing, that's difficult. I thought it was a tired game overall by both teams, a lot of front of the rim jump shots. So neither team played well. But don't rest on the fact that you didn't play well and you lost because the Lakers can say they didn't play well and they actually won. I thought a lot of it came down to making the big plays, the tougher plays the last five minutes of the game. We played terrific defense, they got three offensive rebounds and scored on all three. I thought those were the difference in the games. Q. Of Paul and Kevin, does one concern you more than the other offensively? DOC RIVERS: No, but we've got to get Kevin going, clearly. He's shooting below 40 in the series, and that's something he doesn't do. Paul, I honestly never worry about a lot offensively. He's a great offensive player. He had a tough night, and he'll get it going. Q. Talk about just why are teams so dominating at home? Why do you see that teams can't win on the road? DOC RIVERS: Well, because they're two good teams, and I think it's that close. I don't think there's any -- we don't have to look at anything more difficult than that. The Lakers have been good at home all year. The Celtics have been good at home all year. It's as simple as that. That doesn't mean either team can't win in either place because both teams have been good on the road, as well, during the regular season. But when you get into the playoffs, you're playing better teams, and it's more difficult to win on the road. Q. Last week you were saying how when you first took the job in Boston you reached out to all the former Celtics and invited them to practice. How much success did you have with that, and who are the former Celtics who have helped you most professionally and personally? DOC RIVERS: Well, I think all of them. It worked extremely well. I actually met some Celtics that I didn't know were Celtics (laughing), some of the newer guys that played for one year. I mean, we literally sent the letter to everybody, and Jeff knows a couple times guys came in the locker room, and I'm very protective about our locker room, as you know. I asked him, "what the hell is he doing in the locker room?" He said, "he used to be a Celtic." But John Havlicek, KC Jones -- John Havlicek has been amazing to be around. He's a personal favorite of mine because he's one of my favorite players, so I kind of lean towards him anyway. He doesn't say a lot, he just comes around, and he's him. I think that's enough. But I enjoy him being around because I love who he is as a person. I think he's great for our guys. Q. Could you maybe share what perhaps the best advice that you got from one of those guys might have been? DOC RIVERS: No, my best advice has been from Red, "be you," "just be you," don't ever be concerned what anybody wants you to be as a coach or as a person. At the end of the day, you go to sleep as you and you wake up as you, and he said that all the time. The only two pieces of basketball advice he ever gave, Red, was, and I use it on our players and remind them all the time, is "be the agitators, don't be the retaliators." He used to tell me that all the time. I asked him to simplify basketball, and he said, "get the ball, don't give up the ball." And I use both of those a lot with our players. Q. Any update on Rondo's status, and how does the game change for you guys when House or Cassell are in there versus when Rondo is in there? DOC RIVERS: I don't have an update, sorry. He's not going to practice today, so I do have that update. He can't practice today. He's sore and swollen, so he's out of practice. So we have to wait until tomorrow. Eddie helped us last night because when he was on the floor, we were allowed to throw the ball to Kevin, and they couldn't double-team anymore. That was huge for us because of the spacing. We put at the time Ray, Paul and Eddie or Pose -- Ray and Eddie with Kevin, and then one big is always under the basket. It took the Lakers away from trapping. That was huge; that was the stretch we made the run. So that was good for us. The problem we had later when Farmar came in, he pressured the ball, and we struggled getting the ball into our sets with Rajon off the floor, and so we have to solve that, and we can. Q. To follow that, what is the biggest thing that you're missing if he either can't go or if he isn't 100 percent? DOC RIVERS: Well, his speed, clearly. I mean there's other guys on our team that help us in other ways like with Eddie and Sam spacing the floor, Tony Allen, who we would consider even starting at point if Rajon couldn't go with his speed and power and his ability to guard Kobe a little bit. But we missed Rajon's speed, and he's the one pure point guard on our team that has the ability to make plays, and that's what we would lose. I'm concerned because if Rondo can play but he doesn't have speed, then that's a concern. Q. And following that, you mentioned that you wanted Kevin to be aggressive. He said that the instruction he keeps getting is be more aggressive, specifically to the hoop. What specifically do you want him to do? DOC RIVERS: I want him to be aggressive, but I don't want him to be faster. I thought he played too fast at times last night. I thought -- that's why I'm always careful as a coach to tell a player to be aggressive, because that means to them sometimes catch it and go, and that's not what you mean. It means seek your shot -- seek to make plays, but play at the same speed and be patient, and I didn't think we were that overall as a team last night. We watched film, and we did talk about that, and we'll make that correction. Q. What are the difficulties of preparing for Los Angeles's offense, and is it more difficult to prepare than another team's offense, or is it just made so because of the hurray surrounding it? DOC RIVERS: No, I just think it's difficult because Kobe is on that offense. He makes your offense pretty damned good because he's a great player. No, it's difficult; they have movement, but so do everybody. Utah has a much -- we move. It's more to me, really, you put a great player in at offense, it makes the offense pretty darned good, you know? Q. There's always a lot of talk about your All-Stars, but just talk about the importance of Rondo to this team, and when he has in the couple games that he has been out. How tough was he to replace? DOC RIVERS: Well, he's tough. We've actually had success, honestly, with him out, too. Tony Allen -- you know, you've been around me long enough, I don't worry about guys out; I just don't. That's why we play them all, and it's nothing I fret about a whole bunch. If a guy is out, somebody else has to step up and play. That's what we've done all year. When Kevin was out, we played well. When Rondo was out, he actually missed the game here in LA, we started Tony Allen and we played great. So I don't concern myself a lot with guys being out. I just don't think that's a good place for a coach to ever be. Having said that, Rondo's value is extremely important to the team. We understand that. He gives us speed; he gives us great point guard play. He has the ability to pressure the ball. But if he can play, it's going to be great, but if he can't, we're not going to use that as a crutch, I can tell you that. Q. And after the game you were telling the guys, hey, get your rest, get your rest. Was there any specific reason to relay that message to them? DOC RIVERS: How did you know that? You weren't in the locker room. Q. The TV got you. DOC RIVERS: Oh, did they? We've got to turn that damned TV off (laughter). But anyway, no, it was, bottom line, get your rest. I really thought, watching the film -- and I saw it live, as well, this is the first game that I had four or five different players during the game signal to pull them out. Hell, I had to blow a time-out, one that I dearly -- I didn't want to use, late, if you remember when Paul got fouled, he signaled for a time-out. I thought he was injured because he just said, "I need a time-out," and I called a time-out. He just wanted to blow. We needed that darned time-out when I think about it, and I told our guys that, as well. I said, we can't use time-outs for rest for a couple guys. Anyway, I just thought that it was a tough turnaround, and I just think rest is very important. It wasn't LA, all right, it was rest (laughter). Q. You're from Atlanta. DOC RIVERS: Yeah, Atlanta is worse (laughter). Stop it (laughter). Q. Phil Jackson talked about because of all the discussion yesterday about the officiating, Phil suggested last night that the league and that the coaches have talked about it, hoping that there would be some kind of separation, some entity established that would create supervising officials that provided some separation from the NBA and potential influence as the allegations were. I guess I wondered what are your thoughts on something like that. And then secondly, do you have any concerns? You've been around the league a long time, about the integrity or the caliber or the essence of the officiating? DOC RIVERS: First of all, I have zero concern about the integrity. That doesn't mean I don't cry with every other call. But I don't have any thought, and I never have, about the integrity of our officials. It's the toughest game in sports to officiate, and every call -- I learned that as a broadcaster, that every arena I went in during the playoffs, the fan base thought the refs were against them. So you do the one team, then you go to the other arena -- so everyone thought -- it's just tough. The whole Donaghy thing just makes me sick, if you want me to be honest. Paul Pierce got injured and we questioned him, but we believe Donaghy? When you think of the logic of that crap, it really -- I'm not going to go any further, but our league is a great league, and that stuff bothers me a lot. It really does. The other thing is I don't know what the fix is. It's just a tough game to officiate, it really is. Ask all our players to talk about when the coaches officiate practices and how they like that; you know what I'm saying? They love the officials then. So it's just a difficult game. I don't know if there is a fix as far as -- I think as far as perception, Coach Jackson may be right, the separation. But at the end of the day, it's not going to change. Fans are going to -- when it's a charge, they're going to want a block. If it's their team, they're going to want a charge. It's just a very tough game. It's faster, stronger, quicker, and it's just a hard game to officiate. I just want it to go my way every game. End of FastScripts |
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