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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERS

June 9, 2010

Doc Rivers

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day

Q. You said before the series that you thought this might be a tough one for Baby just because of his dimensions, he doesn't have the length that the Lakers have.
DOC RIVERS: Yeah.

Q. Considering what he has to work with, how do you think he is --
DOC RIVERS: He's playing well. I thought Baby played terrific last night. He made it difficult. They went small, I guess small when Odom is at the 4, so it made it easier for us to keep Baby in. And Baby was playing great. He played with great energy. So, you know, it made it difficult to actually bring Perk back in the game.
We waited so long, Baby had it going, Kevin had it going. You know, the one match-up or combination we haven't used as much as we thought we were going to use in this series is the Kevin and Rasheed combination, but there's obvious reasons why we haven't done that, and that's Rasheed's health for the most part. But he said he's feeling a little bit better today, so you never know.

Q. The other thing, knowing Ray, what does he get back to today?
DOC RIVERS: Hopefully sleep. I thought Ray had good shots. I thought he did force a couple. The ones that were blocked should have been another pass and another action. I thought overall we didn't play with great offensive discipline or even defensive discipline at times last night, where the extra pass and defensively the extra rotation. Knowing Ray he's going to try to take a million shots, and Ray knows Ray better than us, I hope. But I am concerned with the quick turnarounds and his legs, because what I saw was everything was front rim and his shot was flat. I thought that's what allowed some of those shots to get blocked, and usually that's a leg issue. You know, and so we'll see.

Q. Through the playoffs Derek seems to have been effective at either getting around the screen or getting a foul drawn on the screen. Do you agree with that, and does he do anything in particular that sets him apart as far as getting through screens?
DOC RIVERS: Derek? What, besides flopping, he doesn't do a lot extra. He plays hard. He's been in the game long enough to understand. I thought he got away with a lot last night. I thought there was a lot of holding going on and a lot of flopping going on, and finally he showed that last one.
But he's good at it, he's always been good at it. We knew that going into the series. He's one of the best charge takers in the game. He's always been that. And some of them are charges and then some of them are flops, but all of them are tough to call. It is a brutal call to make, it really is a tough one.
But as far as the off-the-ball action, single double action, you are not allowed to hold. You're not allowed to bump and you're not allowed to impede progress. I read that this morning, and I'm positive of it. So you know, when that happens, then that has to be called.

Q. Have you had to reinforce to your big men to make sure to stay stationary?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, but we got called for one last night, and I don't think the Lakers got called for any moving picks last night, which I thought that -- I don't send in a lot usually to the League. I sent in a lot this morning.

Q. Just in general, the changes in the officiating from the time when you played to now, how do you feel about them?
DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't know. You know, I thought, number one, when I played, it was just two officials, so that was a while ago. And I also thought that back then it was more they just called the game, you know, what they saw. Now it's so much more technical and in some ways better and in some ways not because officials won't call something that's not in their area, if you know what I mean, even if they see it at times.
But it's tough. I think the game is more athletic, the game is faster, and it's brutal. We're hard on them. Well, everybody is hard on them, but it is a very difficult game to call. I think what we all want is just consistency. It's tough to get to that, but I think that's what everybody wants. It is just a different game.

Q. How much has it influenced your offensive movement and ability to have Ray Allen on the bench with fouls in the first game, Kevin Garnett in the second game and Paul yesterday?
DOC RIVERS: It's huge. We've had all three games one of our, quote-unquote, Big Three have not been able to play. You know, Paul last night was never in his rhythm. He couldn't be. He played for four minutes, he was back on the bench, played for five minutes -- I mean, I played Paul at times last night when I should not have had him on the floor with four fouls. I had no choice. I mean, you've got to get him on the floor at some point.
But it clearly -- you know, we watched film today, and I showed Paul, it's funny, I said, Paul, that's a driving lane. You've got to get to the basket. His response was, "I was worried about getting another foul." It's tough to play that way.
So we just have to get better at staying out of foul trouble somehow.

Q. What did you mean yesterday when you were saying about maybe if you complained about the officiating things would change?
DOC RIVERS: I'm going to let you do whatever you want to do with that. I don't know who said that. I said that? I don't even remember that. That's gone. Now I'm saying it.
No, I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day we've got to play. I told our guys, listen, whether you like the calls, you didn't like the calls, we've got to play better at the end of the day. We've got to play smarter and we've got to play more disciplined.

Q. How is Phil Jackson in his many skills as a coach, how is he at working the officials and the system?
DOC RIVERS: I think he's as good -- I think we're all pretty good at it. But listen, I hope that if Phil Jackson says something the day before and it happens, I hope that has nothing to do with the officials, and I hope if I say -- I just hope that it doesn't. And I don't think it does. But I think last night they did get -- it's funny, I thought they got away with more with all the moving screens. I didn't think it was all our fouls. I just think it was a ton of moving screens they got away with.

Q. When we watched your games in the first three rounds it seems like Rondo was just living in the lane and getting good opportunities for everybody. Kobe is keeping him out of the lane as long as you guys -- as long as the Lakers keep you guys from running it up. Is that part of why the Big Three are struggling a little bit?
DOC RIVERS: I think more the foul thing than the Kobe thing, honestly. I will say this: In Game 2 we forced a lot of misses, we got in transition, Kobe wasn't a factor in keeping Rondo out of the paint. In Game 1 they dominated us on the glass, they created their tempo. When they didn't score they got offensive rebounds. They did it get last night. They dominated us on the glass.
We did have more misses last night, but the pace was slow. At the beginning of the game we got off running. Rondo was exactly the way we wanted to play. But after that first six minutes of the game we didn't get back to that pace at all. And I thought we had opportunities, too. They had, what, 45 misses last night. That means that's 45 running opportunities for us, and we only had six of them.

Q. About what Phil said, I've said Phil set agendas with the best of them. As a matter of fact you might have even been on the Knicks when he said that Pat Riley was out to hurt people.
DOC RIVERS: He should have said "us." Pat couldn't do anything.

Q. I'm not aware of Phil having said very much about the officials in this series except that he didn't like some calls in Game 2. What did you hear him say?
DOC RIVERS: What you just said.

Q. That's pretty mild.
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, it is, but it carries weight. But I don't think it did. The point I was making, I thought overall it was more -- even in your papers and everything, I thought there was more complaining about the officiating in Game 2, and I was thinking, you're kidding me. You're a team that's in foul trouble. At the end of the day it's not going to be the officials who win or lose these games. We're going to get away with stuff, they're going to get away with stuff. We've got to play, and this has got to be a playing series.
I think honestly there's too much talk about them, the officials. They've got a tough job. The Lakers have a tough job, the Celtics have a tough job, and we need to all get back to just doing our jobs.

Q. When you look at the tapes, how much of what you're talking about falls on your own guys just not doing the things that you know are there, the things you've talked about at all?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, well, it's our discipline, our fouls, and I tell all our guys, a lot of our fouls were due to our discipline defensively, and then you get a cheap foul, all right, but you get the cheap foul, everyone gets one a game, but if you get two fouls because you're not doing your job and then you get a cheap foul, now you're in foul trouble. And I think right now we did too much of that.

Q. Hard to believe but I actually wasn't talking about fouls.
DOC RIVERS: Oh.

Q. I'm talking about the ball movement that went away, that stops -- not finding Kevin in the post as much, Kevin maybe not getting the low post as much after early going. Just things you guys know that work that you stopped going to for whatever reason all year.
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I thought that was the difference in the game. I thought that was the single -- offensively I thought that was the difference in the game. When we fell on something that worked, we went away from it even though we know we should have stayed with it. We tried to play out of random too much. We like random, but when something else is working -- I thought the Lakers did a sensational job when they fell onto something, they stayed with it. The Fisher-Kobe pick-and-roll, for example, they stayed with that set. They ran it, it worked, ran it again, it worked, ran it again, it worked. We went to our set with Kevin, it worked, and then go three plays without running it and then we'd go back to it. I never thought we stayed with stuff long enough. But we saw that.

Q. I know Paul has been in foul trouble, but the fact that Ron Artest's job is essentially to be a menace to Paul, how much more difficult does that make Paul's assignment? How much is Ron affecting him basically?
DOC RIVERS: I don't think he is.

Q. Really?
DOC RIVERS: I don't. I thought Paul is getting good shots, I think he's getting good shots. He's not making some of them. Maybe Ron has something to do with that. But if we get Paul in rhythm and get him on his spots, I feel very confident that Paul will have big games for the rest of the series.

Q. You see him doing it's almost like a girl checking her hair in the mirror, is his shot just kind of gone --
DOC RIVERS: Just not going in. It happens. But you look at -- just watch the film. Those shots are wide open. For Paul, he's not going to keep missing those. And so you look at his first three shots last night, if you ask Paul what shots, he'll take those three shots that didn't go in. Then he gets in foul trouble and all of that.
No, I liked Paul's shots. We need him to make them, there's no doubt about that. But I really like his shots, and I think he has the ability to get shots.

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