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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERS

June 8, 2010

Doc Rivers

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Game Three

Q. You don't have a dedicated sixth man like a Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford. What's it been like managing that bench not knowing where your points are going to come from or production, and what's your idea of a good bench?
DOC RIVERS: Well, the Jason Terry one was a pretty good one. That would be good. We do have guys. We expect solid play from Glen Davis and Rasheed Wallace coming off the bench every night. We know they're coming in and they're going to have an impact. So at the big spots I think we're pretty solid. It's more at the smalls.
Tony has to be our defensive and our energy beacon, that's what we call him. That's what we need him to have. Nate is a wild card for us right now. He was great in the Orlando game, he was great the other night. So you obviously don't know on a given night with any of those four, but you know one of them. And a lot of times fouls have dictated with the bigs which way we go.

Q. I think you said six minutes for KG in the first half the other night. What else can he do to keep out of foul trouble and just get going a little more in this series?
DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't know. He has to -- obviously the fouls had an impact. I'm just miffed and amazed how the other team complained about the fouls since we've been the team that's been in foul trouble for two games. Maybe they do different math there or something. I don't get that one.
But we just have to keep him on the floor. Two of his fouls were not smart fouls, so he has to do a better job of that. But listen, this is a physical series, Gasol and Bynum, they're big, and they're going to keep attacking, and we just have to figure out a way of keeping them out of foul trouble. It's huge for us.
To win that game the other night with him in foul trouble and Paul not being great offensively, we felt very fortunate. We were happy to win, but we have to be better than that.

Q. And you're talking about your team's mental approach into Game 1, you said you could kind of tell it wasn't where you wanted it to be. What did you do to manage it between 2 and 3?
DOC RIVERS: I didn't manage it at all, really. I told them go home and get some sleep. This turnaround is a tough turnaround for everybody. We met over at the arena this afternoon early and watched film. But I think we've learned our lesson. Both teams have.
It's funny, the adjustments that both teams have talked about from Game 1 to Game 2 to Game 3 is better focus, better execution and doing it harder and doing it tougher. You know, I said that early. There's not going to be a lot of changes, but the mental changes are going to be key, and it will be in this game.

Q. We were talking about this the other day amongst ourselves, and it seemed like at the beginning of the year, November and December, Perk was somebody you could throw the ball into and not cringe. He had a nice game around the basket. Has something changed for him since then? Because he doesn't seem to have the same presence around the basket that he had in the fall.
DOC RIVERS: Well, I agree. You know, he's gotten away from finishing quickly. You guys have been around the game long enough to know guys work on something all summer, they come back in the year and they do it right out of the gates and they're successful with it, and then they get away from it, and it's tough to get it back. We work on it every day. We work on it pregame, bounce pass, catch, straight up. My favorite play of the game unfortunately was them, the other team, when they threw a pass to Bynum and he caught it, never brought it back down. I mean, it was like a big-man textbook move that you would show to all. That's what we have to get Perk doing a better job, rolling better and catching and finishing. Right now he's gathering again. We thought we got him out of that, and he's back to it.
We work on it, but yeah, he was far more effective early in the year.

Q. Monty Williams was saying today that you were the first person who ever told him he would be a head coach. Do you remember when that was, or what made you think that?
DOC RIVERS: It was when I was coaching in Orlando, and he was playing for me. I actually -- Monty is one of the few players that I played with and coached. It makes you feel like you're 1,000 years old. Now he's coaching and he's a head coach. I'm just really happy for him. I will say that. But I told him he was going to coach some day because I told him I was about to cut him soon as a player. (Laughter).
But no, I'm very happy for him. He'll be a very, very good coach.

Q. Someone asked Phil the same question about a college coach getting a $6 million offer. What are your thoughts? And why is it so hard for a college coach to coach at this level?
DOC RIVERS: I don't think it's tough for college coaches to coach in the NBA. If you look at it historically they've all had bad jobs. They've all had bad talent on their team. I think the first one that gets good players will be a good coach in our league. Usually when you take a job in the league, it's usually because a team hasn't done well, and usually they don't have a lot of players, and that's the jobs that a lot of the college coaches have gotten.
So I think it's more that than anything else. There are a lot of college coaches that would be very good NBA coaches.

Q. On another one of your big men, Baby, has given up a lot of height in this series but he was able to be successful in the third quarter. Have you talked to him about not getting frustrated and keep going?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I thought he was huge in Game 2. I guess he's huge all the time in some ways. But he was, he was great with his energy. You know, he's not going to be taller than anyone in this series. This is a long team, and he gets underneath, sometimes he gets too deep, he can't finish. One of the things I thought he did better the other night, he got it up quick or he threw it back out.
You know, one of Ray's threes was off of Glen Davis' offensive rebounds, and that's something we preach. We don't exactly execute it very well, but we preach offensive rebounds is the best time to look for a three-point shooter, and that's something I hope we do more of in this series.

Q. He's been the one guy able to get to the glass. I know you don't like to send a lot of people to the offensive glass, but is he one of them?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, because he can bang. He has a good sense for the ball and he's under there. We don't mind our bigs attacking the glass as long as they get back, and Baby does that. But it's just his energy. I thought his energy was one of the key reasons we won the game the other night.

Q. What defensive changes do you expect the Lakers to make in regards to defending Ray Allen tonight?
DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't know. I think they'll do basically what they did in the second half more. They face guarded him more. They trapped whenever he came off of any pin-down, so they did a better job in the second half. Ray did his damage in the first half. And they're going to switch different bodies on him. Kobe will guard him more but Kobe will guard Rondo, as well. And then they'll use Rondo's guy to be a spy guy. But those are things we've seen. It's nothing we haven't seen.

Q. What did you see in Nate Robinson that you were able to identify right off the bat that has led to him fitting in as well as he has, contributing, and he seems calmer?
DOC RIVERS: I don't know if calm and Nate will ever go together, I will say that.
Really, we're just using him where we think he can be successful. We try to keep him in positions where he can be successful, offensively, middle pick-and-roll. It's simple, but it's great for Nate. And what he's done better is now when he comes off, he shoots or passes. When he first got here he came off and he dribbled and he dribbled and he dribbled and that's not the way we played. It may have been good for Nate, it wasn't good for our team. And I think Nate understands that.
But the reason Nate is playing is because he's bought into our defense. Early on he just -- he didn't know it and he hadn't bought in yet, and now he has.

End of FastScripts

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