Human Victory Cigar

Coach Doc Rivers answers questions on Practice Day, Sunday May 25 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.

Q. Game 1 you get off to an 8-0 run, last night 11-0. How important are those quick starts for you?

Doc Rivers: They’re important, obviously. We’ve got to sustain it clearly. But it’s nice, especially on the road where we hadn’t won. Confidence-wise, that was important. Game 1, we had just come off of a Game 7, so confidence-wise that was important, as well.

Q. What do you attribute it to?

Doc Rivers: Well, preparation. Guys had great focus to start the game. We go over every step we want to run and they tend to execute — all teams execute early in the games better than they do later, and so that’s probably why part of it was so good early.

Q. How much more enjoyable was last night coming back to your hotel room and rehashing the game and its positives rather than what you did wrong?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, it’s better than the other way, no doubt about it. Heck, I don’t know, as a coach you kind of come back and you watch it and you tend to start looking at all the things that didn’t go well more than the things that did. But you make a film of both.

But it is nicer, there’s no doubt about that.

Q. So you did find enough things that did go wrong?

Doc Rivers: Oh, you always do. Heck, even in the blowouts you find it. We didn’t end the game we wanted to. We had stretches at the end of quarters that we didn’t like, as well. But overall we were happy with our play. We not only had ball movement but we had people movement offensively. When we play that way offensively, it’s tough to guard us. I just thought in the fourth we stopped doing all that. We started just holding onto the ball and started thinking about winning instead of playing, and we’ve got to just keep playing through it.

Q. And your defense, was it more do you think your defense, or was it them missing shots? Did they have decent looks do you think?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, they did. I thought they did have some good looks, but I thought our defense was really good, as well. But they did get good looks and they missed shots, so we can’t fall in love with just the field goal percentage. We look at times at the type of shots they had. We forced them out of some shots, but they did have good looks, as well.

Q. When you came in last week — what was it, Perk and Rajon up there?

Doc Rivers: Yeah.

Q. If those two guys are up there, that is a good sign for you guys, isn’t it?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, that’s not a real bad sign when they’re doing the interviews, especially on the road. At home they probably could have done a couple, but on the road they have not had that opportunity, and they both earned it.

I thought they both made plays. You know, they made themselves available and made plays, and I thought that was important.

Q. For those guys to make plays, it also means that your guys keep having to move the ball?

Doc Rivers: Yeah, but I thought it was more on them to move themselves. I didn’t think they moved well in Game 2, and we showed them that on film. We showed them exactly where they could go. We made that adjustment and then Rondo and Perk followed through on it.

I thought there was times in the fourth they got away from it again, and kind of just stood around in the corners, and that’s basically what they want you to do. But in the first three quarters Rondo and Perk — Perk was just terrific in that way.