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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS v HEATMay 30, 2012Doc RiversMIAMI, FLORIDA: Game Two Boston Celtics - 111 Q.  Doc, can you just talk about Rondo's performance? COACH DOC RIVERS: It was great, you know. He was absolutely phenomenal. Put the whole team at times on his shoulders. You know, it's tough to have him play that way and not win the game, honestly, because he did basically everything right. We had a lot of opportunities to win the game. Q. Doc, when was the decision made to have Rajon go the full 48 then overtime? COACH DOC RIVERS: It just happened during the game. Q. Really? COACH DOC RIVERS: Yeah. You just read it. I don't start the game saying, I'm going to play Rondo the whole game. I just kind of read the situation. He was playing at a pretty good pace, so you just rode him. Q. Doc, you said after Game 1 there was anger in the locker room. What was it just now? How do you get over having such great efforts from a few of your players that you needed them from? COACH DOC RIVERS: You just do. It's basketball. Listen, we played terrific. I told them, I said, we played extremely hard. I thought we played with great heart tonight, but I didn't think we played smart all the time. And there's things we can absolutely fix, and we'll do that. We'll be ready for Friday. Q. Doc, talk about holding Wade down in the first half the way you did, what you did. And is he such a great player that it's inevitable he's eventually going to break loose? COACH DOC RIVERS: I guess it's inevitable, but I'm not going to buy into that, honestly. I thought we did a better job of doing what we were doing in the first half. I thought in the second half we got away from it a little bit on our own, and it got him loose. That was disappointing. We did a great job. We trapped him, took the ball out of his hands, made him a passer. That's what we thought we had to do. I love the game plan. We just didn't follow through with it in the second half as well as we did in the first half. Q. Doc, I genuinely don't want to get you in trouble here, but when the game is so tight and there's such a narrow margin of error, when you get in foul trouble and the 50‑50 calls, is it tough to overcome that when you're on the road in a situation like this? COACH DOC RIVERS: Can you call it something else besides 50‑50 calls? Can you come up with another percentage for me? Q. I might. COACH DOC RIVERS: Go ahead and do it. Q. A couple of calls could have gone either way. It seemed like they went against you. COACH DOC RIVERS: What would that be? What percentage? I'm not saying anything. I would like you to say it. Q. I know what you're saying. COACH DOC RIVERS: Okay. Q. Could you elaborate without it hitting your pocket? COACH DOC RIVERS: I cannot. Listen, it is what it is. LeBron James took 24 free throws tonight and our team took 29. Paul Pierce fouled out of a game where he was attacking the basket. It's just tough. But listen, we just got to keep playing. I tell my guys, doesn't matter, we can't get distracted. We will not get distracted in this series. I guarantee you right now they're distracted, our team, in the locker room. But we have to get it out of us and move on. Whatever happens happened, and we're just going to move on and play the next game. Q. Doc, can you just talk about Rondo. Ray said he's seen a confidence in him he hasn't seen. Obviously Rondo hasn't been known as a jumpshooter. Some of his shooting‑‑ COACH DOC RIVERS: On film they were going under in Game 1 to an extreme point. What Rondo did I thought he just stepped up to the elbow, where he shoots a high percentage and he just took the shots. And I thought that's what he had to do. He has to keep doing that.  We have to get more guys involved as well. I've got to do a better job of getting Kevin the ball in the right spots. I didn't think the entire night we did a good job at that. We had a lot of points tonight. We scored points tonight. But even with those points, I thought we still had a lot of empty possessions. I thought a lot of those we have to find a way to get Kevin more involved with the way we still play. And that's on me and my staff. Q. Doc, looking forward, I can imagine what the scene and what the mood is like in the locker room, how do you throw this away and get back for Friday? COACH DOC RIVERS: You don't throw it away. You hold onto it for 24 hours, and then you move on. We've been really good at that. We have no choice in the matter. We play at home on Friday. You know, listen, it's corny, but they've won two games at home, and now we go to a place that we're very comfortable in, and we have to win two games at home. And then we'll see from there. Q. Doc, given just the way a lot of your guys played tonight and Rondo especially, just the effort, how much is what's at stake for you guys maybe more than some previous playoff years involved in every game you guys play right now? COACH DOC RIVERS: It's at stake for both teams. You can never take any season for granted. Hell, we win this series, it may not be the same Miami team next year. Really. I tell players that all the time. There is no guarantees for next year. Every year you have to play like this is the last time this group you're with will ever play together. And most of the time that's going to be true whether you win or lose. So I think we understand that, but I think they do, too. And so I think both teams feel that type of pressure. Q. Doc, how do you, after Rondo got the non‑call, and you had to hold him back from the official, as a distraction, how do you keep the guys from being distracted? COACH DOC RIVERS: I just remind them of the score. Even when we started the third quarter, we were down six, and I told them before the game down six on the road here, we would have taken it. Don't let the comeback that they had skewer what you've done the whole game. Just hang in there, stay in there. I thought our guys did a really good job of that all game. Listen, there were plenty of times in this game, in my opinion, for our guys to get distracted. I thought they pulled themselves out of it very well for most of the game. And we just have to play better. We're not going to blame‑‑ we have to play better. And we will. Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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