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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS v HEATMay 28, 2012Doc RiversMIAMI, FLORIDA: Game One Boston Celtics79 Q. Doc, just from your perspective, where did things go wrong for you guys tonight? COACH DOC RIVERS: Well, you know, listen, I thought they were ready to play, I'm talking about Miami. I thought we kind of joined the game. First quarter we gave them a cushion, which I thought gave them a lot of confidence. I thought in the second quarter we executed ourselves offensively. The ball started moving‑‑ I thought we started competing. I thought Keyon came in and changed the game for us with his defensive energy. Then in the third quarter the game just got away from us. I thought we rushed. I thought our offense was rushed. I never thought we ever got into our rhythm as far as getting one side of the floor to the other, second and third options. And they made some shots. But they made way too many lay‑ups. They had way too many lay‑ups. We have to do a better job of protecting the paint.  There's no way any team should get that many lay‑ups, that many point‑blank shots against our defense. Q. Offense being rushed, Doc, was that a function of something they were doing or you guys not executing? COACH DOC RIVERS: I always give them the credit. We'll look at the film and we'll see. I just know when we took our time in the second quarter, we got everything we wanted. And then we went back to the way we started the game in the third quarter. On the road you just can't have two quarters of lulls. You just can't afford it. And I thought we did that. Q. Doc, a couple of things you were looking for coming into the series, establishing Kevin. You did a pretty good job of that. COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah. Q. And you kept it from them getting out in transition. You only committed nine turnovers. Two of the big keys were there for you, weren't they? COACH DOC RIVERS: They were. I didn't think we rebounded very well. They crushed us in the 50/50 game. Anything loose or rolling or anywhere they got. Honestly, I expected them to in some ways, the quicker guy always gets to the loose ball. But I thought we could have got more of them. Offensively we just have to be more efficient. I didn't think we played great defensively, and we still held them to 93 points. But at the pace the game was played, 93 felt like 110 because it was a slow‑paced game. They shot 50% from the field, and they still outrebounded us on the offensive end. If a team shoots 50%, they can't also have more offensive rebounds than you. Q. Doc, you probably expected LeBron and Dwyane to sort of have the games they had, but when you look at the boxscore and see what Shane Battier was able to do, particularly in that third quarter, what stood out about his play and how do you guys compensate for that? COACH DOC RIVERS: We guard him. That would be nice. Take away some of the easy shots. I thought Shane had three or four easy shots that hurt us. I thought Mike Miller's eight points in the first half really hurt us as well. Those are the baskets we have to take away. You're not going to take everything away from them. They have two sensational players. But we gave them both tonight, in my opinion. We let Wade, we let LeBron play in extreme comfort, and we gave the other guys everything they wanted as well. So we'll go back and see what we can do better, and we'll fix it. Q. Hey, Doc, just more about LeBron and Wade. They had a great three‑game stretch and they're just continuing it. Just talk about the roll they're on and some of the other things they did tonight, LeBron with rebounding and Dwyane with passing. COACH DOC RIVERS: And defense, too. LeBron and Wade, their defense was phenomenal. I thought they did a great job of doubling, getting back, playing the passing lanes. They're cat quick. That's who they are. You know that going into the series. I don't know‑‑ as much as you can watch it and prepare for it, I do think you need to face it once to see it, and get used to it. I thought their speed at times overwhelmed us for sure. Q. Doc, you played some zone in the fourth quarter. What are your thoughts, pluses and minuses, about zone for you for the rest of the series? COACH DOC RIVERS: You'll see it. We like it. As a coach, you get kind of caught tonight. We've been working on zone all year even though we've played it probably five times, six times all year. We work on it every practice. We go through it every shoot‑around. We believe it will be effective in this series. But when you're down 16 or 18, you're kind of caught, do you use it for wait for the next game, or do you show it and try to see what they run and then make adjustments to it? And that was the final decision we made. At that point when we ran it, I didn't know if we were going to make a run. I was trying to see really how we could tweak it to make it better. Q. (Indiscernible). COACH DOC RIVERS: Rebounding and individual defense is huge in zone. I thought the game earlier in the year when we played them, may have been the second game of the year, our zone was effective, but they scored on us off of dribble penetration. Just because you're in a zone, you still have to guard the ball. And then the long rebounds. I thought Joel Anthony probably didn't get credit for a lot of rebounds, but they kept a lot alive, just batting it out. And again the theory is, if they can hit it out, the quickest guy gets to the ball. I think they got to every single one of those. Q. Doc, the free throw and rebound numbers, do you contribute that to fatigue or tiredness at all? COACH DOC RIVERS: I don't know. We're a good free‑throw shooting team for the most part, Kevin and Ray. I think Ray missed four free throws tonight. I don't think we'll ever see that again. He almost missed three in a row on the one. I don't know for Ray if it's fatigue. It may be something else. He got a bunch of wide‑open shots tonight, and with him it's just balance. When you have a bad foot, ankle or anything, your balance is off and you can see it on Ray. The ball is going left a lot. He's one of the greatest shooters of all time. Ray is going to try to figure it out. We're going to try to figure it out. We're going to try to figure out a way of even maybe subbing him differently to keep him strong. Honestly, I don't know yet with Ray. But we're a better free‑throw shooting team than that. Q. Doc, with Rondo seems like they were making things really hard on him, especially when he did get into the paint. How can you get him going a little bit better? COACH DOC RIVERS: He's got to be in attack. I thought the second quarter he was attacking and attacking. I thought he was reading a lot instead of playing on his instincts. I think sometimes his IQ hurts him at times. He's trying to read the defense. You can't read and play at speed at the same time. And we go through it a lot. At least Rondo and I, about, "Rondo, just trust your instincts. Your speed has to be part of it. Your instincts will take over. You'll make the right decision." So we have to give him more room. Listen, guys have to hit shots. When you're helping‑‑ tonight they were helping off of Pietrus, they were helping off of Ray. And you don't make them pay for it, then it makes it easier to guard Rondo. Q. Doc, the 11 points in the first and I think it was 29 in the last eight minutes of the second, how good did you feel at halftime? And how much in the halftime did you talk about consistency? COACH DOC RIVERS: The whole half. Obviously, I liked where we were at at halftime. I didn't think we played but about eight good minutes in the first half and the score was tied. So I was thrilled with that. As a coach, honestly I was concerned, though, because even though we had the one stretch, it was a small lineup. We kind of tricked the game up to do it. I just didn't like our offensive rhythm, honestly. And it's rare in the time‑‑ in the halftime we spent a lot of time talking about more offense than defense. And we did. Q. Doc, you were hit with five technical fouls for your team tonight. What happened on yours, and were the other four deserved? COACH DOC RIVERS: I know mine wasn't. I can tell you that much. I don't know how long I've been in the league, but that has to rank as the worst I've ever had. I would have loved to earn it. We should never get them anyway. I told our guys that. But everybody has to keep their composure. Not just the players and the coaches. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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