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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERSJune 5, 2010Doc RiversLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. Can you confirm that Tim Thibodeau has committed to coach the Bulls, and if that has been reported, what impact do you think that will have on the team? DOC RIVERS: It won't have an impact. Right now we're focused on basketball. I can't confirm it. I hope it's true, but we're not going to comment on it, I can tell you that. We're focused on the NBA Finals. There's two teams. There's the Lakers and the Celtics, and that's what we're going to keep the focus on. But on Tom, he deserves the job. I think he's the best candidate out there. I've said that for three years now. So let's hope it's true. But other than that we're going to leave it at that. Q. I know you talked the other day about the fact that you have Wooden's picture on your desk or in your office. Why was that important to have that memento? DOC RIVERS: He was the best coach ever, him and Red Auerbach are the two guys that we talk about, the gods, and there are two of them. So the fact that I got to meet him and he actually knew my name, to me blew me away on its own right. I don't ask for a lot of autographs, and he was one that I wanted, and he was as gracious as we thought he would be. You know, to have those two on your desk, I don't think you need to further your collection. You know, those are the two best. Tough, sad loss, really, for all of us. But with Wooden, I think he's one of the rare superstars that stood out more about him as a person than he did as a coach or anything. And that's rare, when you say that about any star in any business. Q. When you got blown out in Game 3 against Cleveland, it was easy to say maybe it was only one game because you had outplayed them in Games 1 and 2 for the most part, and you haven't really shown that you can stop the Lakers yet. Is it going to be harder for people to believe that the Celtics are the better team so far? Maybe I'm asking this wrong. DOC RIVERS: No, I see what you're saying, and it's true. We had some proof against Cleveland. We have none. I'm not in the business of trying to prove to the masses. I've just got to prove to 15, and that's the guys in the locker room. As long as they believe, it doesn't really matter what anyone else believes. I guarantee you after the Cleveland game we were the only 15 that thought Game 4 would be different. We don't concern ourselves with any of that. They played great, and we give them all the credit in the world, and we didn't, and we know that, as well. They can play better, too, and they will. So I think this game will be a better played game by both teams. Q. Bynum is playing but he's limited. Can you talk a little bit about his effectiveness and the impact that has on them and on you? DOC RIVERS: Well, he's tall. You know, really. I mean, size matters. It had an impact in the game. We missed a lot of shots at the basket. You thought, wow, we missed lay-ups. On film a lot of those missed lay-ups was because Bynum was around, Gasol was around. They have a lot of length. And then they blocked some, as well. He's a terrific player. I mean, he does his job. I think Bynum understands his role on this team, so yeah, he's doing well. Q. How much has your inability to push the pace sort of enabled him to keep up? DOC RIVERS: Well, we have to get stops to push the pace, and we didn't do that very well. Again, they had 84 points after three quarters, and so we have not proven that we can stop them yet, and we have to do that. I mean, let's be honest, if you're going to be in the 100s every game, that's not good for us. Q. You had success in the Cleveland series stretching Ray and Paul on LeBron when either of them got into foul trouble. Is that something you might do with Kobe? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we were going to do it in the game, but Ray picked up two of his three fouls not on Kobe. The first foul he got his actually on Gasol, and the third foul was on Fisher. We actually had moved him off, but he still picked up fouls. It was just one of those games. It took all of our shooting off the floor. With Ray being off the floor and having Tony and Rajon and Perk on the floor at the same time, and allowed them to be really big in the paint. We have to do a better job of keeping more shooting on the floor to keep the floor spaced. Q. Can you talk about the pros and the cons of the two-day break between these games? On the one hand getting a chance to work on stuff, on the other hand having to stew over Game 1? DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't mind the two-day break at all. Two or one. For us a two-day break has to have some benefit, especially as you guys have all said we were old the last 24 hours. Hell, we need this break, guys, we're so darned old. Really, I don't think the two days matter. The four or five days, that matters more. But now I think it's more of a pro. Even if you win, you know, you've got to hear how good you are for 48 hours; if you lose you've got to hear how bad you are for 48 hours. I don't know if it has that big of an impact. Q. Getting back to Tim just for a second, I know you don't want to do that -- DOC RIVERS: I don't. Q. But suppose he does get a job, does that in any way affect what you might think about coming back? DOC RIVERS: No, you know, Tibs and I are very close, but that won't have an impact. I want all my coaches to get jobs. I mean, they work so hard. Kevin Eastman and Armond Hill, those guys are gems, they really are. Some day they probably will. They won't have an impact. I honestly haven't thought enough about it, so I guess I would say I don't know, but I would say I don't think it'll have an impact. Q. The other thing is Danny Ainge said on the radio yesterday that he thought Rondo might have tweaked his back. Is there any validity to that, and just a general update on -- DOC RIVERS: You know Danny is Mormon, so there has to be a lot of validity to it. He would never lie. No, it's more -- he didn't tweak it, it's the same injury that he's had throughout the playoffs, and it's not really his back, it's his butt. His glutes are tight. They've been tight. You see him do this stretch almost every chance he gets. He's been doing that throughout the playoffs, though. Listen, everyone has something going on with their bodies right now. The NBA playoffs are very difficult, and by the time you get to The Finals, there's a chance that every single guy on the floor has some kind of nick. We're no different than anybody else. Q. How about Marquis? DOC RIVERS: Marquis I think is going to be okay. Yeah, we're hoping. We'll know tonight, today. We're going to practice and we're going to make him go through live, so that's a big surprise for us. That's good for us. We didn't think that -- I thought he was out for the playoffs personally, so that's a good thing. I can't guarantee tomorrow, but I think there's a good chance. Q. With every game Perk emerges without Perk getting that technical foul, do you feel yourself having to talk to him or are you comfortable with where he's at? DOC RIVERS: I'm comfortable. He just has to play. We talk about it enough quite honestly. We shouldn't talk about it anymore. Perk has got to be Perk because if he's not, he's not effective. He's just going to play, and if it happens, it happens. We'll deal with that. But we've got to let Perk loose and go play. Just be Perk. Q. Just the importance of getting Rondo going in Game 2, the dribble penetration, he makes everything go -- DOC RIVERS: We've got to get stops. Rondo is not going to get going if we don't get stops. Our offense is directly connected to our defense. Every team's is for the most part if you want to run. If we're going to take the ball out of bounds, if they're going to shoot free throws, they're going to get second shots, Rondo is not going to be in the open court. If we can get multiple stops, we can get multiple runs. So we've got to get stops. Q. Where do you think that energy and effort come into play where you guys win Game 2? DOC RIVERS: Well, I think energy, efforts and execution. We've told our guys for years now, the "I'm playing hard, Coach," line does not work here. You've got to play hard and smart. So we have to have the three - energy, effort and execution. We've got to have all three of those things. I think that's far more important. But that'll come. I think both teams will have energy, both teams will play with great effort. The execution part will be the last. Q. You've been talking for the last few days about 50/50, second-chance points. DOC RIVERS: Those are keys on the road. Those are extra possessions for you. It's tougher to win on the road. It is been our formula, always win the 50/50 game, but especially on the road. We've rarely lost a 50/50 game on the road in the playoffs, and to get crushed like we did in that category, you know, and we just didn't play well on top of that, it means you can't win that game. Q. Yesterday Kevin was saying that he is his worst critic. Can you talk about how you think he's looking -- he's watched the game a couple times. Does he seem to be getting over it or is he still beating himself up? DOC RIVERS: He's beating himself up, but that's cool. That's who he is. That's what makes him great. We've watched film twice now as a group. He's probably watched it on his own three or four times today. I said, Kevin -- he already knew the play before he even started. That's fine. That's what Kevin does. That's what Kobe does. That's what all the great players do. They're students. They watch the game. They understand their mistakes. They own up to them. And they try to learn from them and move on. Q. What do you think about his -- he's played at such a high level and he has this knee injury that's bothering him, just his will to try to play, he can't do what he's used to doing -- DOC RIVERS: Well, that's what Gasol said, that he can't do what he used to do. I don't think Kobe believes that. I don't think Kevin believes that. He's not injured, I can tell you that. He just didn't have a good game. He's as healthy as he's been all year. And I think he plans on trying to prove that to a lot of people tomorrow. Q. Is he healthy in strength? DOC RIVERS: His strength is good, too, right now, it really is. He's in great shape as far as -- listen, he's not who he was two years ago. I'm not, either. Neither is Ray, Paul, Rondo, none of us are. But in a lot of ways through this playoff stretch he's been as good. His numbers are good. We've just got to keep him going. We do have to do a better job of getting him the ball. I thought we failed in that category on our own. We didn't get him the ball in his spots enough. He had a lot of touches outside the paint, at the elbows, and we have to mix it up better. Q. To that point, he seemed to spend a lot of the game confined to the perimeter. Was that a function of the fact that you had fewer shooters on the floor for much of the game? But you look at the '08 tape he was down on the block most every possession starting. He was more acting as a facilitator 20, 25 feet out. Was that your running? DOC RIVERS: Really he's always been at both. You didn't watch the '08 Finals very well because Kevin scored both. As a matter of fact his points were almost 50/50 in that category. So go back and look. He's always been our facilitator at the elbows. That has never changed. And he is on the post, as well. We clearly got him the ball more, and we wanted to give him the ball more in the post. We want to mix it up for him. He's one of our best passers, as well. It's very similar what they do with Gasol. Gasol scores on the post but he also has the ball out there at elbows, as well, because he's one of our better passers, as well. We didn't do either one enough, to be honest, and we have to do a better job of getting him the ball. We have to do a better job of getting Ray -- we've got to get Ray on the floor and then do a better job of getting Paul the ball in his right spots. Honestly, if you looked at us the first game, I don't think we did any of that very well. But we're fine. It's not a function of what we're running. We're not changing it. It's the same stuff. End of FastScripts |
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