Human Victory Cigar

Coach Doc Rivers answers questions on Practice Day, Tuesday May 27 2008, after the Boston Celtics’ win against the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.

Doc Rivers: We didn’t get off to a fast start yesterday, but we had plenty of chances to win the game. We were down five, down three in the fourth quarter. We didn’t play well, clearly.

Q. (Inaudible).

Doc Rivers: Well, I thought they attacked. They were more physical. They fouled us hard, they bumped us off our spots. We’ve been a team in the games we’ve won that pressured them. They were the team that pressured us.

Q. (Inaudible).

Doc Rivers: It doesn’t matter, they’re going to do it and we’re going to do it back.

Q. (Question about Jeremiah Rivers transferring schools.)

Doc Rivers: I think it’s great. I don’t think he could have chosen wrong honestly, any of the places. Georgetown, I’m extremely happy. He nailed it down to Georgia Tech, which I would have loved, UCF, I would have loved, and he couldn’t have gone wrong. I was going to be happy anyway. I wanted to make sure he’s happy. At the end of the day, it’s up to him, so he made the choice and I’m happy for him. I love Tom Crean. I’ve known him for a long time obviously. I guess in some ways I used to pay him (laughing). So it’s great. It’s good for him.

Q. (Inaudible).

Doc Rivers: We got looks, but we didn’t necessarily get the exact looks we wanted, and I thought they had better looks. I thought we got some rough looks. We didn’t miss open shots clearly, but I still felt we were just going too fast. We allowed their pressure to rush us. So that’s probably why they didn’t go in. All of them were missing shots, but I thought we could have got better looks.

Q. You’ve been talking about being more aggressive.

Doc Rivers: Yeah, I thought part of it was being aggressive, but I thought the other part was we just decided we were going to foul you every time; we’re not going to let you have anything. Some of it was us, but a lot of it was them.

Q. (Inaudible).

Doc Rivers: I thought it absolutely did. It slowed the game down. You know, it’s funny, when they shoot 51 percent from the field and they only have 94 points, that tells you how slow the pace of the game was.