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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERSJune 11, 2010Doc RiversBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day Q. Because of the way your bench played last night, will that encourage you to play them even more now? DOC RIVERS: No, it'll encourage me to put them in at the normal time, and then if they play well -- but listen, last night was -- each game is a separate game as far as I'm concerned. You know, it goes by feel, and sometimes it goes by gut. I just felt like their intensity was at a level that our starters wouldn't have been able to match last night. And so you just ride them. But again, every game is a separate game. I do trust our bench, and so if they're playing well, it would be nice to use them. I look at it in a lot of ways with our starters, especially with the Big Three, you know, the more they're sitting the better for them in the long run if the lead can get extended. Q. How much did you sense the Lakers missed Andrew Bynum's presence last night? DOC RIVERS: Well, they miss him. I mean, he has great size and length, and we attacked the paint yesterday, and Andrew wasn't there. So I mean, obviously when he's not on the floor, there's a big difference. They miss him, but again, I still think usually in the fourth quarters or late, in the last six minutes of the game, it's usually Lamar Odom and Gasol anyway. Q. You frequently reference discussing things with your assistant coaches, and I was wondering if, A, you did discuss leaving all those guys in with your staff, and B, do you ever allow yourself to think two moves ahead and just for a second say, God, if this doesn't move they're going to say why didn't leave the Big Three in there? DOC RIVERS: No, I don't worry about that. You make decisions which you think are the best and you go with it. Yeah, I talk a lot with my assistants. It's more statements than discussions for the most part. I just -- it's funny, Armond was like, I don't know if you can take Tony out. It was more the defensive part of it. And at the end I ended up putting Paul back in because I thought we needed the scoring, we needed another bucket. I looked at the score and I thought we needed two more buckets to win that game. I always make statements so they know what I'm thinking. And then I said it, I said a seven-point margin, remind me what I just said. I'll say stuff like that. Q. The offense guys spoke of Tony's defense? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, but the way our coaches -- and Tibs is the same way, they're coaches at the end of the day. Armond gives a lot of defensive input and Tom Thibodeau gives a lot of offensive input and Kevin Eastman is the guy I talk to the most on the bench because he's kind of the guy for me in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of people don't understand how good he is. So that's the guy I probably talk to the most because he's the most even-keeled. Tibs and Armond are emotional like me and Kevin is the calm guy, and I do it all the time. I say, Kevin, what do you think? Q. Can you talk a little bit about your guys' resiliency, 1-0 in the series, 2-1 in the series but winning last night? Seems like you can't count them out. DOC RIVERS: Well, you're right. That's been their MO of late at least. We knew after losing Game 3 that we lost a golden opportunity in that game, didn't play well. But we also understood that we have two more at home and let's try to make it -- the thought going into last night, let's make it a three-game series. Q. They've been written off a lot during the season, so where do you think that comes from, just the veteran aspect? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I think that. I think our young guys are loose. They're extremely confident. You know, just watching Baby and Nate in the postgame interview, you wouldn't have thought that they were in a world championship the way they were acting. That's just who they are. And sometimes that's really good and sometimes it's really bad. But when you're down, I think it's good, because they don't care, they're just going to play anyway, and that's a good thing. Q. How concerned are you with Rajon's free-throw shooting? Because it's become kind of an issue again after he seemed to solve it. DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we're going to work on it. He knows what he's not doing, we know what he's not doing. Last summer Armond went down, I went down and watched him and Mark (Price) work on it. There's certain things that he has to do. Clearly the first two he was -- nothing that he can be taught, I can tell you that, he fell away, his elbow was out. The first one you could see it right away. So we'll get it back. But then the confidence part has to come back, as well. I will say this: I was really proud of him because I thought in Game 2 when he missed a couple, he stopped driving, and that's what happens when you miss free throws and then you don't want to get fouled anymore -- or in Game 3 rather. I thought last night he kept taking it to the basket, and for me that was huge. That's a good sign for him. Q. So you did think that affected his aggressiveness during this series at times? DOC RIVERS: Just in Game 3 I thought was the only game. I thought he just tended not to drive more. But I thought he went right back to it. So that's how much he's grown. A year ago or two years ago, that may have been the last lay-up of the series, you know, and last night in the third quarter he came out, he was aggressive, he was attacking, and that's who he has to be. The free throws are a go for him. I think he was basically saying that to himself, I'm going to go in here and get fouled and make my free throws. That might have been the best sign of the night for me for him because that showed me that he was going to be aggressive the rest of the series. And I think because of that he'll be a factor the rest of the series. Q. Quick off-the-court question: Can you comment at all on the Boston sports scene and what it's like to be a part of that and maybe what a run like your team is making and other teams make in this city? DOC RIVERS: All I can say is it's an amazing scene because it's a group of knowledgeable fans for the good and the bad of that, and it's mostly good. I'd say 99 percent good. I think people think -- I get it all the time from other coaches, how do you deal with that, and I say, it's great, they care, they have passion. If you can walk through life with a bunch of people with passion, I think you'd rather have that. And then the fellowship of the coaches is terrific. You know, we all share texts and calls together, so it's really a neat thing. I don't know if you can get that in any other city. But it's in our city, and it's great to have. Q. Is that like with Bill Belichick you're saying? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, with all of them. Me and Tito probably exchange the most, but it's terrific. Q. Can you just explain how much or in what ways Big Baby has grown into his role just being a professional athlete on this team. DOC RIVERS: Well, I think he's matured more than anything, and he's still maturing. He still has a ways to go. But I think he's becoming more comfortable in his own skin. He accepts who he is. You know, this incident that happened at the beginning of the year was not the best thing for him or our team. You know, and I wouldn't want it to happen to any other player. But in some ways, it may have helped him understand that he had to mature now, and we were -- and I think he also understood that the team was not going to wait for him. We were going to move on. You know, and when he came back, he didn't immediately play, and I thought that -- you know, all that probably in some way helped him. He still has his days, and I think we laugh, but he did earn the name Big Baby, and it wasn't from his size. But he's growing, he is, he's growing up as a guy in front of our eyes, and it's nice. That's one of the things we said when he got injured, or how he got injured, that he is young, and all the young players in our league, they don't have the comfort of growing up in private. They have to grow up in public, and that's not the easiest thing for some guys. Q. And his role, how different is it this time around than in 2008? DOC RIVERS: Well, he plays every night. That's number one. I don't know if everyone remembers, in 2008 we were platooning him or Leon, and it was more Leon actually than Baby. So that's one. The other way is we go to him on the post now if we feel like he has a match-up, and that's something we would have never done two years ago. And then last thing is he's a better jump shooter. Q. What makes Tony so effective against Kobe? Is there some uniqueness in his skill set that allows him to be that much more effective against Kobe Bryant? DOC RIVERS: You guys are setting Tony up right now with all this Tony stopper stuff, if I know my Kobe Bryants. It's a team effort is what I hope all of our guys are saying, number one, and it really is. You know, Tony, I got on him I don't know what game it was, but I just basically -- we were talking, and he has to be in some ways our Artest. That doesn't mean you're going to stop anybody. There's nobody, by the way, that's stopping Kobe Bryant. If it is, I haven't met him or it because I don't think it would be a person. But you know, Tony's job is to come in, and his main focus is defense, just be a defensive player, and that allows you to guard the big guys because you don't have any other worries, about offense or rebounding. You're worried about your assignment. Whenever you pick somebody to do that, it gives them a chance to be a better defender, and I think that's what Tony is doing. Q. When you look at the team in terms of contracts of guys coming up this summer and the age of the team and the whole concept of the window, is there a sense of that in the locker room in terms of this could be the last run this team has? DOC RIVERS: No, we don't talk about it at all, and I don't think this is, anyway. I've said that -- I said it in the middle of the year. I think hopefully we sign Ray back -- I think I can say that. If not, I just got fined. (Laughter). I think Kevin is going to be better next year because of a year away from surgery. I thought that during the middle of the year. So we don't think that. I think everyone outside of us, a lot of people do. Q. Why do you think neither team has been able to really blow out the other team? Even the Lakers would have a big lead and you're able to come back on them. Why is there so much closeness in this series? DOC RIVERS: Both teams are good. Both teams are defensive minded. Both teams have the ability to make defensive runs. I think if both teams were offensive minded you would see one team get blown out in this series. You can be up 12 in this series and then a team can get 10 or 15 straight stops and get back in the game. Both teams have shown they have the ability to do that. You know, I think we're pretty evenly matched. Q. You alluded to the fact that Glen had a rough start to the season. Considering where Nate came from, is this postseason like a new opportunity for them? DOC RIVERS: Well, yeah, probably for all of them. We have a hell of a collection on the bench when you think about it. Rasheed, Nate, Baby and Tony, they've had their critics, and in some ways they've earned that, too. But they just keep plugging along. You know, we call them the emotional group because they are, and on nights when their emotions and the stars and the moons are aligned right, they can be really effective. You know when they play hard and with that much intensity, something is going to happen. And that's one of my coaches' lines. We don't know if it's good or bad. But something is going to happen when that group comes in the game, and that's what you feel when you're putting them in to create action. Q. Is Nate and Glen an odd couple? I believe Nate said they were like Shrek and Donkey. DOC RIVERS: They are not. Nate is the verbal guy and you can tell, and so is Baby for that matter. But listen, during the playoffs, and we said this I think it was before the Orlando series, Nate grew up during the playoffs. It took him a while. He bought in is a better way of putting it. I think he bought into what we were doing. It took him a while. When he first came in, he wanted to play like he had played all his career, and it just took him some time. You could tell in the practices, demeanors changed, he was less talk, he was focused, less mistakes, and when you do that, that gives the coach confidence to put you in the game, and I think that's what Nate has done. Q. The two games here in Boston have been sort of slow, low-possession, grind-it-out games. Is that the games you guys want, or would you prefer them to get a little faster? DOC RIVERS: Well, we want that for the Lakers but we want to run really. We want to get out on the break. I think we have to run. They're too big. They're long. So we would like to get out in transition more, but they know that, too, and the two things they've done better is even when we're getting stops, they're getting back now. And on the first two games we thought we could beat them down the floor, and we did. Now they're getting back. So we just have to keep getting stops and see how many times we can get Rondo out into transition. Q. Along those lines you guys have done what you had to do, but are you happy with the way you guys have played, especially offensively? Can you get better? DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't think anyone is going to have a great offensive series so far. The Lakers scored 86 points yesterday or 80 whatever they had and we had 84 one night. I did expect that coming in. Offensively I don't like some of our empty possessions. I don't mind missed shots, but the last two games we've had a ton of empty possessions where we -- and we call it random, where we came down and really didn't establish any flow and never got into a set or an execution, and that's unlike us. And you've seen us, and so that's the only troublesome thing for me right now with our team, and we have to get out of that because it will come down to a one-possession game. If you keep wasting these possessions it's going to come back and hurt you. I thought it did in Game 3. Q. I know this might be the furthest thing from your mind but have you gotten a chance to know Oliver Lafayette at all? And how lucky is it for a guy like that to be a part of this? DOC RIVERS: I know him as much as I keep saying Oliver, get out of the way. No, both young guys -- Tony, as well, I don't know him well yet. One thing I do like about them, they seem like they're terrific kids, both seem like they have high character. They've been great in our locker room at halftime. Always ask them every halftime, what do you see? And every once in a while they'll come up with something pretty good. So it's good. They're at the facility right now. I told the team yesterday, everyone has the day off except for two, and they know who the two were, they didn't even ask. They went right to the facility this morning and they're already working out. They're working out as we speak. Q. How much tougher is this than '08? And the second question is, how do you prepare for Kobe Bryant because you said last night you expect him to have a game where he goes for about 50ish? So do you also prepare differently knowing that he's not going to leave any bullets in the chamber? DOC RIVERS: Well, he shouldn't. Let me tell you, if I had that gun, I wouldn't leave any in the chamber, either, and he's pretty good. You don't prepare any differently. You know, we have our fourth quarter, let's say, way of guarding him if it's late. Other than that, we just play our team defense, and we have to be able to play through his greatness. We've had the luxury of saying that now every series. In round 1 we said, hey, we have to have the luxury of playing through Dwyane's greatness, the second was LeBron's greatness, the third one was Dwight Howard's greatness, and now we're saying it again, and we've said it every game. Don't overreact to great shots. Q. And tougher than '08 or compared to '08? DOC RIVERS: '08, I don't know, I don't compare them. For me right now I'm kind of lost in this series, and I'll probably be able to answer that later. But I can't even answer it right now. End of FastScripts |
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