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NBA FINALS: LAKERS v CELTICSJune 17, 2008Doc RiversBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Game Six COACH DOC RIVERS: Now I want to talk to you guys finally (laughter). Q. If you can, can you just think back a year to where you were coming to this point now? COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, well, I can tell you where I was at. I was probably on the 3rd hole somewhere golfing and hoping that we were going to improve our team. You know, this is really sweet, obviously, for a lot of reasons. Just the players, just hanging in there with all of us this year. We really pushed them to play together as a team and a group, and they did it. Really all the praise goes to them. Q. In this series alone you had Rondo's ankle, Perk's ankle, Perk's shoulder, Paul's knee, Ray's family emergency and a delayed flight out of LA and tonight Ray. Did I miss anything? What presented the biggest challenge to you in this series? COACH DOC RIVERS: We talked about adversity all year, and we kept saying that it had to come our way and we had to accept it and embrace it. We talked about that before the game this morning. I brought up all those things you just brought up, and then I just basically said, and as a group, we said it together, no excuses, don't use them. We don't need them. I just thought we had a very tough team mentally in that way. I've got to say that. I was so proud of Rajon Rondo because, you know, he was really struggling, and to fight his way through that tonight and to play with the energy and the toughness that he played with tonight was absolutely fantastic. I think that almost symbolized our year in a nutshell. Q. When you took Paul, Kevin and Ray out of the game with 4:01 remaining, could you sort of talk about that? Was that something you had planned all along? Was it an impromptu decision? How did that play out? COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, I thought about it a minute before that, and I just thought they came in as a group, and I thought we should take them out as a group. So I did think about it right before I did it. You know, I refused to allow Johnny Joe Connor and Phil Lynch and Annmarie, my assistant, to give me any plans. They all wanted to sit me down and talk about parade plans, and I told them I didn't want to hear about it. I didn't want to talk about it. So really I was unprepared for anything at the end of the game. It's probably sweeter that way. Q. And when they came off, what was said? COACH DOC RIVERS: Just we loved each other. They all said "thank you," and I said "thank you" back. Paul, obviously we -- it's just so sweet. He just kept saying "thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me again," and I kept saying the same thing to him. So it was really a nice moment. Q. How was your defense able to completely suffocate these guys in the first half? COACH DOC RIVERS: We played defense in stretches throughout the series, and we talked about it yesterday on the plane. We talked about it this morning in shootaround, that it was going to be our defense that was going to win the world championship for us or be our defense that would lose one. We challenged them before the game for one time, let's play 48 minutes of defense, just all-out, denials, challenge shots. Because I thought through this playoff we played in quarters and spurts, and it was good in those spurts. Tonight we finally put it together on probably the perfect night to do it, offensively and defensively. It was just perfect tonight. Q. Going back to Rondo, he probably struggled as much as you can in LA. Did you say anything or talk to him about anything in the 48 hours between games 5 and 6? COACH DOC RIVERS: No, just "don't worry about it. I'm not going anywhere. You'll be right there at the beginning of the game, and just be aggressive. I will never fault you for being aggressive," and I thought that's what he was. Q. You have a lot of guys on this team who sacrifice, but in particular you had three guys who were used to being the star. What was it about the three of them from the beginning that worked and clicked and made them all buy in? COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, I just think we got them at the right time, honestly. You get three guys who have accomplished everything in their careers except for that, you know, and we talked about it a lot. You know, their money can buy everything except for the trophy, and the only way you're going to do that is you're going to have to lean on someone else to achieve that goal, and you have to lean on each other and you're going to have to trust your teammates. I thought as important as it was that they trusted each other, I thought it was far more important that they trusted the other guys. They obviously knew that -- Ray knew that Paul and Kevin could play, but they had to trust Rondo and Perk and Leon and Pose. I thought that was far more important than them getting along, and they did that. Q. Can you now tell us what you told No. 5 before the game? COACH DOC RIVERS: I actually didn't say a word. I had Kevin Eastman, my assistant, about ten minutes before the game, and I said, "I need you to just go in and observe Kevin, just check on him," and he came back in and Kevin Eastman said, "I think he's good." So I didn't say a word to him. Q. You've seen Paul play a lot of great games during his time at Boston. Do you think at all during this postseason that people outside of Boston got to see the breadth of his skills? COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, no doubt. I think Paul was only viewed upon as a scorer, you know, and now I think people see him as a complete basketball player. He had eight assists the other night. The game before that he guarded Kobe and did a terrific job. He's, I think, one of the best rebounders at small forward in our league, and he's a lethal scorer, and he did it all. Q. You were one of the guys trying to keep this team down for a long time. Not since you got here or anything -- COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, thanks (laughter). Q. But having been here for this time, do you have a sense of what these 22 years mean, and from getting there, trying to get back again? COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I mean, obviously -- thank gosh I was not part of all those 22 years of trying to get back. I probably helped you more on the last one that you got, playing for the Hawks in that time. But you can feel it from the fans. You know, you really could feel it almost from the Red Sox fans before they won their first one, I was here already, and the frustration but the dedication. This year was obviously easy as far as fans were concerned. My first year wasn't bad; we won our division. I thought the two years in between is when I appreciated the Celtic fans more than anything, and really on the road. You travel on the road with us a lot, and I was amazed how many Celtic fans were in the crowd, just cheering. Some of them said, "get rid of Doc," but most of them were cheering. That was probably you (laughter). It just showed me that they're there, and we needed to supply them with a reason to really come out, and today driving to the arena, every person in Boston it looked like was wearing something green or had a Paul Pierce or Ray Allen jersey. That was really sweet to see. Q. When you knew the game was over, what was the first thing that popped into your head? And two, what does this mean for your father and you and your legacy? COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, I thought I was going to get through it -- Q. I'm sorry. COACH DOC RIVERS: It was the first thing I thought of. I thought of my wife, my kids, my mom. My first thought was what would my dad say, and honestly I started laughing because I thought he would probably say, if you knew my dad, "it's about time. What have you been waiting for?" So that was my first thought. Thank you, guys. End of FastScripts |
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