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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS v MAGICMay 27, 2010Doc RiversBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day Q. Just wanted to get your thoughts on Kendrick having the technical rescinded and being able to play in Game 6 tomorrow night? COACH RIVERS: Well, obviously, I'm happy about it. I'm a little disappointed that both technicals were not rescinded. I thought they both should have been, and I'm very surprised that they're not. But I'll take the one and hopefully we can keep working on the other one. So, yeah, I'm very happy about it. I think it's the right decision. Unfortunately, we can't get those calls back. It clearly hurt us in Game 5 not having Perk out on the floor. Q. And looking ahead, I know yesterday before the game you said you talked to him. Are you going to, have you, because you'll need him one way or another the rest of this series and potentially the next one? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, you do. He's an emotional kid; he plays hard. He's also one of your physical players, and physical players get tangled up at times and that's the point I was making before the game. It's amazing how now it's coming to play about these double technicals. I think if we went back and reviewed most of Perk's double technicals, you can make a case of getting more than that one rescinded. That's the only problem I have. I understand if you're arguing with the ref and they give you a tech there. I understand the flagrant fouls and technicals that players get, and you should get in trouble for that. But these double technicals to me are just an easy way to try to control the game. Unfortunately, when you're us or Orlando or any team that's still alive, I think it comes back to hurt you, and I don't think it's fair. Q. On the other front, how is Baby doing? Has he had tests today? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, Baby looks good. He was talking; he looked fine. So he still has to go through a couple of tests, I think, this evening with our doctors to get clearance. Didn't have any headaches today. He had some last night, but didn't have any today, which is a big step, I guess. And I think all of it will be a game-time decision, so we'll have to wait and see. Q. Back to Perk for a moment. I know that you disagreed with the two calls. But at some point doesn't he sort of have to realize that he's really treading on thin ice here? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, he does. But honestly Perk created the problem as far as his emotional overloads, you know what I mean? Where he's allowed himself to get to this. But I also do believe that I go back to the double technicals and all this. Well, if you're a physical player, you're going to be the guy in most of those. So in some ways, obviously, Perk has to clean up his emotions, but it's a fine line. You need him to be emotional too as a player. Q. What is the update on Rasheed Wallace's back, and Marquis Daniels' concussion? COACH RIVERS: Marquis is not doing as well as Baby, I can tell you that. Right now not so sure if he'll be ready. I would actually say right now he probably will not be ready. But that will be a game-time decision, and Rasheed is doing better. Was not moving well at all today, but he's doing better. He said he felt a little bit better. We watched some film before we got on the plane today as a group, and he couldn't sit down. So he just stretched the whole time. But he's feeling better, and his will be a game-time decision as well. Q. Past couple of games K.G. hasn't been as dominant. What do you think the problem is there? COACH RIVERS: We've got to get the ball to him more. That's one thing, clearly. We've got to do a better job of trying to find him in the right spots. We knew going into this series it would be tougher to get them on spot like we did in the Cleveland series. They double teamed, they front-and-back a lot. So we've got to try to do a better job of establishing had a part of our offense. Q. What is the emotions of the team right now? Is there any panic or is it just you guys have the experience, you've been there before, and you're confident? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, we're very confident. We were disappointed that we lost these last few games and either one of the games last night was just a surreal night in a lot of ways. But we're good. Had a great film session. Guys know what we haven't done and what we need to do, and I think they'll be ready to do it tomorrow night. Q. Can you talk a little about your team's relationship with technical fouls? I think you guys have 21 in the playoffs so far, and numbers are fairly high during the regular season. People might say a veteran team, well, they're not going to get any technical fouls. What goes on with you guys and technicals? COACH RIVERS: I don't know if that's true. The veteran team, if you look at it, probably gets more because they have a longer reputation, and you could take the case the opposite way in some ways. But as far as our relationship with them, we're very close to them. We've been very close to them all year. We have some very emotional players, and we knew that coming into the year. We've talked about it. But people aren't going to change for the most part. We have Rasheed, very emotional. We have Kendrick Perkins, very emotional. We have Kevin Garnett, very emotional. And you could make the case with all three their emotions are what has allowed them to be good players. Does it hurt the teams at times? Yeah, there is no doubt about that. We have a rule, and we break the rule at times is no fourth quarter techs. Rondo's extremely emotional as well. This is the group we have. We knew coming into the year that it would be an issue, and it has been. Q. Do you have any concern that Kendrick playing with the fear of getting the next technical is going to be like a guy defending with five fouls on him? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, I am very concerned by that. You know, Kendrick has to be allowed to play, and he has to be allowed to be physical. It's amazing how this game has gone so far. Kendrick's in foul trouble, and he's not the most physical player on the floor. Dwight Howard is clearly the most physical player on the floor. You know, we keep telling Perkins, he has to be physical as hell, and he says, yeah, but I end up in foul trouble. We are really concerned about that. And I'm just going to try to get Perk to be Perk and play and not be concerned with techs, not be concerned with fouls, and just go out and play, but that's very difficult to do. Q. Recently you had a quote that said you think there will be a player/coach in the NBA one day. As a former point guard and player in the NBA, is it sometimes hard for you watching the game as a head coach not to be on the floor and be able to owe like if your team's not executing the way you want them to? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, I would probably say that for all of the coaches that have played. You know, especially when it's something that you did well. I would say it's more in that case. But for the most part, not that frustrating at all knowing you couldn't do it because you can't do half the things they can do now anyways. But it is. The bigger the game, the more you'd love to be out there. That is the player side of you, and that will never go away. But then you wake-up and realize no, you probably wouldn't. Q. In the locker room after the game yesterday, obviously it was a pretty bad loss. How do you go about addressing this team? Obviously you talked about a lot of personalities. How do you deal with managing the personalities and trying not to let all of the personality like spill over into the locker room? COACH RIVERS: Well, last night was a very emotional locker room. Guys were upset at a lot of stuff. Our message was focus on the game plan, focus on our formula. And don't get caught up in all the other stuff. There is no other stuff, as far as we're concerned, and that's what I tried to get across to them. Guys are worried about each other. Guys are injured and sitting in there looking like a mash unit at one point. You saw all the trainers and the doctors, and I'm trying to talk, and everybody's got ice. And one of the things I actually said is this is great, isn't it? This is the playoffs. This is what it should be about, and embrace this moment, and I think on our team overall will. Q. You mentioned that last night was pretty surreal. But now that you've had a chance to look at it, what are the things specifically you guys need to clean you up? Was it the threes? Was it the rebounding? What do you need to do better in Game 6? COACH RIVERS: Clearly the three-point shot we have to take away. They're going to get some, but to get the ones they got what we showed them today, some of the ones they got out of their offense, out of the pick-and-roll stuff they may get a couple of those. But the ones they got off offensive rebounds and loose balls and effort plays, 50-50 plays, those have to be taken away. I thought Orlando played harder last night I thought they were the aggressor last night and I thought they attacked us the entire game. So that is something that we can do. That's not a game plan. That's something when we win, we do that. And we didn't do that as well as Orlando did last night. Especially on the glass. They mauled us on the glass last night, and I thought they just controlled the tempo of the game. Q. Either you or Stan said it, maybe even both last night, the team had a has been that team has won each of these games in the series. On some level does it just kind of come down to that? COACH RIVERS: That and playing well. But that is one component. You've got to have that. That probably allows you to play well, but you have to have that. These teams, we're really good and so are they. Neither team's going to win a game and not play as hard as the other team. That's just not going to happen. Q. What is your reaction to Paul's Foul being upgraded to a flagrant one? COACH RIVERS: Didn't agree with it, because there were other plays in the series that we sent in that we thought should have been. But that's not a big deal. Paul's not going to be a guy that is going to have a ton of flagrant fouls and I don't think we ever have to worry about him getting to that silly number. So I'm not that concerned about that. Q. Also, you guys have been outscored in the fourth quarter of every game. I know the final score you worry about. But how much of a red flag is that? COACH RIVERS: I don't know. That is something we've got to fix, obviously. One and two, we had such big leads, one, two, and three actually. Those are kind of misleading numbers. But four, we were up by two. It was a close game. Then they beat us and actually outscored us by two points. So those were tough. Fourth quarter last night we tried to scratch back in. Then we kind of let go towards the end. With five minutes left, four minutes left, I took our guys out. My first thought was we're not going to win this game. Get as many guys on out as you can. Unfortunately last night we didn't have enough guys to get out. I had to leave Paul on the floor. Q. Curious to know how does J.J. Redick sort of disrupted any of your plans? Or did you kind of expect him to provide the spark that he has for the magic? COACH RIVERS: Well, we can't know he was going to be pistol Pete coming into this series. But we did expect him to be a great player. J.J. Redick has hurt us all year in the regular season. It was one of the things we talked about going into the series. J.J. Redick has been very, very important. He was last year in the playoffs against us, he's played very well against us in the regular season, and he's played well again against us in the playoffs now. He's a guy that everyone's talking about Dwight Howard and Jameer. I think J.J. Redick has been their most consistent player in this series. Q. When exactly did you hear that Kendrick's tech was going to be reversed and were you pretty confident that it would be? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, I actually was in shock. I actually said I was very surprised they both weren't reversed. I thought they both would be. So it's funny. I got the news and I was almost more disappointed than happy and relieved because I knew he'd play tomorrow. But I was pretty sure that both of them would be rescinded. I'm really surprised they're not. I mean the technical he got when he walked away and the double tech, I didn't think either guy, if anybody, because he was involved. He was instigator, but I didn't think he was the guy that deserved a double tech, so. Q. Obviously there's a lot of panic in Boston on the outside with the Bruins and all that stuff. You guys are up 3-2, you've got a home game to try to close this series out. Can you talk about the positives of putting yourself in that position moving forward? COACH RIVERS: Well, we've been in this position before. We've also played in Boston a while, so we understand that panic. Like I said a while ago a, the best part about playing in Boston is the worst part as well. There's great history. It's a great city, a great sports city. Probably as good as you can get. The good part about that is now recount all the historical things that have happened in sports are the good ones. The bad part is they can recount all the historical things that happened in sports, all the bad ones. I don't think our guys get caught up in it much to be honest. But it's definitely here and that is just this city. It's always been that way, and there is something good about that. They cheer, they're involved, that's good. Q. Does it give you any extra level of comfort though that you're playing this game at home where you have your third chance to close out but this game is at home instead of on the road? COACH RIVERS: No, I don't take comfort in any game where you're at. I really don't. I like being at home because we're in front of our fans. After last night's game, it's great to come back home and play. Having said that, we lost Game 7 last year to the Magic on our home floor. And I think our guys understand that at the end of the day, you've got to perform on the floor. You just can't come back and feel like your being at home will do it for you. It's got to be played on the floor. If you play well on the floor, then the fans will really help you. But if you're not playing well on the floor, there is nothing the fans can do for you. Q. Have the Hornets extended Tom Thibodeau a contract offer? COACH RIVERS: No, not yet. I'm hoping they do soon. I told you he's terrific, and he works his butt off. Just last night seeing a 113 hung on him and on us, the guy's an exceptional mind. He really is. I've not heard much. We do talk about it, so we're just hoping. Q. Do you feel this is going to become a distraction because you have a lot of teams after him. Is that something you all talk about? COACH RIVERS: No, I'm not worried about it. There's nobody that's going to work harder than Tom Thibodeau, ever. And he's never going to be distracted from his job. That's the one guy I have no concerned with, I'm not worried about it at all. Q. It seems like the Magic have said if Rajon is going to drive into the paint, he's going to end up on his back. And it seems like a lot of the contact is after he releases the shot? COACH RIVERS: You're the only one that notices that, I can tell you that. Q. What can you do? It seems like that's not going to get called if he releases his shot and gets knocked down after a potential block. How do you get Rajon to remain aggressive? COACH RIVERS: He has just has to. You're right. It's something that we have sent to the league, I can tell you that. There was a block yesterday that the one that Howard ran down with the block. But after the block, the follow through was on top of his back and on his head. Rajon has taken a bunch of head shots just because the clean block, the follow through part of that is still a foul. For Rajon, he just has to stay physical and keep playing the way he plays. I don't think Rajon is going to stop doing what he does. He's an aggressive player. He's got to stay aggressive and play with speed. So I'm not that concerned about that with Rajon. Q. The image between Perk and Dwight Howard, obviously Howard is considered kind of a nice guy in the league. His commercials, the way he smiles, a good personality off the court. Perk, I haven't seen Perk in a commercial. Perk is kind of a surly guy until you get to he know him. He's a really nice guy. But do you think referees take into account that? Because it seems that Perk is perhaps getting a certain wrap. And as you said, Dwight is the most physical player in the series. Do you think Perk's reputation for arguing calls and the fact that he doesn't smile and doesn't seem as personal is hurting him at this point? COACH RIVERS: I don't know. I'm going to let you guys make that decision. I'll put it like this: I think Dwight Howard, I don't know if Perk complains more than Dwight Howard or less. But I can guarantee you it's not an advantage either way. I guess it's the way Dwight does it and Perk does it, it has an impact. I don't know. But you can only go by what's been called so far and it hasn't gone Perk's way. So Perk just has to keep focused on playing. All that other stuff, at the end of the day, we can't wait for anybody to do it for us. I told our guys that. Our mentality is we just have to lace them up and go for it. Q. First to fill up the medical report, Rajon Rondo is reported to have some sort of muscle spasms. It looked like Rasheed also tweaked his back and maybe Allen his ankle. Can you update their conditions and if they're expected to play fully? COACH RIVERS: Rondo will be fine. He did have some spasms in Game 4. They're basically gone. Rasheed will be a game time decision. His back is bothering him. He looked a little better today, not great. Tony's ankle is still a problem. And he really has been struggling on the floor due to it, so that's a decision that we're going to have to make tomorrow. If he's good enough to play, he'll play. If not, we may have to go in another direction. You know, Baby is a game-time decision as well. And Marquis, a game-time decision. So we have a lot of bumps and bruises right now, but we'll be okay. Q. Orlando seems to start their pick-and-rolls near the top of the key as opposed to the wings to avoid the worst of your overload. And to have some success easy penetrating. Obviously, that's a concern for you and your players before tomorrow night's game? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, going into the series we identified a couple things that we thought would affect us and affect them -- us in a negative way. Number one, double penetration was probably the number one thing. I would say the second thing is Jameer Nelson's, how effective he was. And in the last two games he's been extremely effective. Then loose balls lead to go threes. So if you look at the last two games, they've done all three of those things very well, and those are three things that we have to clean up. Q. You had a lot of mileage in the first three games that have just been very rough using every foul you've had. Is that something -- it seems anyway, that you maybe get a little bit away from that as Dwight is off the pick-and-roll. Is it tough to get back to that? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, it's tough to get back to it when your guy's already in foul trouble for touch fouls. So, for us, we want to be physical too because they sure are. So that's got to be -- we've just got to be smarter with the way we use our fouls, and that way we have fouls to use. In the last couple games, we haven't been able to use fouls because they're already in foul trouble. We just have to do a better job of moving our feet, trying to stay out of foul trouble, and being able to pick and choose when we actually want the foul. End of FastScripts |
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