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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS v MAGIC

May 18, 2010

Doc Rivers

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Game Two

Boston Celtics 95
Orlando Magic 92

Q. Doc, the execution down the stretch in the fourth quarter, first of all, did you want to foul in the three seconds? And also, getting to that point, how you guys were able to pull that out without Paul on the floor?
DOC RIVERS: It was huge. Obviously down the stretch, we wanted to foul, unless they caught the ball facing the basket. And Jameer did. So he was trying to bait us into fouling. Once the player faces the basket, if you reach and foul, then they throw it up, that's what he was trying to get us to do. When they got the rebound, we wanted to foul. J.J. Redick I think thought Tony Allen was going to foul him. That's why he was dribbling. We were yelling at Tony to foul. It actually worked out, then they called time-out and lost seconds on the clock.

Q. Can you just talk about just what kind of a rock 'em sock 'em physical game it was?
DOC RIVERS: It was a great game intensity-wise. It was a game of runs. Very physical. They got the better of us in that, I thought. I thought, you know, they brought the fight to us in a lot of ways. I thought we withstood the hits. And that's something you have to keep doing. And I thought we did that. You know, I thought our execution down the stretch the last five minutes, that's all we talked about after the game was the ball kept finding the open guy. We got back to trusting each other. And we got good shots down the stretch. I thought both teams offensively were phenomenal tonight.

Q. Along those lines how physical it was, was there ever a point where you guys discussed amongst yourself, there were times Orlando clearly lost their cool. Even bickering amongst themselves at times. Were you guys conscious of that on your side?
DOC RIVERS: No, we don't pay attention to it. We try to keep our own bedroom clean, if you know what I'm saying. We have enough of that on our end.
No, I really didn't think they lost their composure. I didn't see it. I wasn't looking. I thought they wanted to play harder, and they did. I thought they wanted to be more physical, and they were.
You know, that's fine by us. We can handle that.

Q. Doc, can you just talk about the idea of being greedy and not settling for a split. Getting two here.
DOC RIVERS: I told my coaches I would know who we were at halftime. I don't know if we were going to win the game or not but I knew we would be in it. You could see we had great focus. We had the lead, I think, by one, but I thought our focus was there. My thought in the second quarter if we can get to halftime and it's a one-point game or tied or we're up, I thought we would be there for the second half.
It was great. Our guys are growing in that area. They had great focus all day today in our shoot-around, in our film session. That says a lot about them now. Unfortunately, we have a month off before the next game. So we have to try to keep it together, you know. For four days they're going to hear how great they are. You know, we have to get our guys to stay focused and humble.

Q. Doc, going back to the season, you know, it sees like you guys basically don't get rattled in any situation at this point. How much does that go back to what you've already gone through?
DOC RIVERS: I think it lends itself to being an advantage for us. You know, Rondo, Perk, our starting five have been to The Finals and won. Rasheed has been to a Finals and won. He's been to one and lost. When you have that many players, Baby, again, that have been to a Finals. So I think when you have that many guys, you give yourself a chance to get five guys at the same time on the floor that are pretty much just going to play possession to possession and not look at the moment.

Q. Doc, as we try to kind of figure out from the outside who this team is, how we can compare you to the regular season and on the other end of the spectrum, how would compare who you guys are right now to say the team that won the championship two years ago?
DOC RIVERS: I don't know. I'm so far off that, to be honest. I think we're becoming a team that started the season more than the team that played in the middle to the end of the season. The team that started the season was pretty good. The team from Christmas, the day after Christmas on struggled. So I would like to think we're that team, the team before that.

Q. You mentioned also trying to keep it together over the next four days, and keeping them focused. How do you do that?
DOC RIVERS: I wish we could take them to Alcatraz for four days and be on the island all by ourselves. That's not going to happen. Going home, it's great in some ways. In a lot of ways, but in other ways, it's tough. Everywhere they go, they're going to hear how great they are. We haven't done anything -- you need four wins; we have two. That's it. Orlando hasn't had a chance to play in our place. So we have to just keep playing basketball.

Q. Doc, Kevin's defense tonight, he had to guard Dwight a few times in spots with Perk out. Is he as good defensively as --
DOC RIVERS: That's not a match-up we were hoping for, I can tell you that. Overall he did a great job with his length. Kevin knows he's not going to win a muscle contest with Dwight Howard, but he does have length. And he stretched him out and he made him change some shots. That's good. We had a ton of foul trouble today, guys. That's what I'm so happy about. Obviously winning the game, but winning the game with different guys in different positions, and everybody pitching in. Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts

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