Hearing Doc so critical of the team last night really was refreshing. After losses many prefer to make excuses and look at any perceived negativity as a slight of the team.
Doc didn't use any excuses after the team collapsed against the Bulls in the 2nd half. None of this is just made up stories but words right from Doc himself. To hear him so honest and critical shows he realizes how important the rest of this regular season is. Instead of making countless excuses he knows what this team is capable of and expects them to perform at a consistently high level.
Here it is straight from Doc ---
"I had to use two timeouts in the first half to remind us that we actually had an NBA game to play and that we needed to play," a ruffled Rivers told reporters in Chicago. "I thought that was the worst loss for us this year, with the way we approached the game. Then in the second half, I just thought Chicago, they were too tough for us. Their toughness made us let go of the ropes. You could see it, we wanted to use all the excuses all night. I just through Chicago was too tough for us tonight.
"I think this team has shown great resolve, but right now, that's twice now [the Celtics have struggled in Chicago]. They get into it, they get frustrated, and our guys let go of the ropes. Bottom line, we’re not going to go a lot of places playing with that type of mental toughness. Chicago’s tougher than us right now. We’ve got three weeks [until the playoffs], with the way we’re playing; If we play like that, we’ll be playing [a top seed like Chicago] in the first round, so we gotta get better."
"That was unacceptable. That’s on me first. I did something where -- I didn’t see something tonight; It’s always on the coach. That’s an unacceptable effort for us. I don’t say that very often. I don’t think I’ve ever said that. That was a crime. It was tough to talk after the game, because about what? We gotta be better than that. I don’t want to hear about us winning crap, not with that effort."
"Listen, I’m just p---ed at the way we played," fumed Rivers. "Honestly, the playoffs are the furthest thing from my mind. We haven’t been that way, but we were tonight.
"We were cool tonight. We were the cool Boston Celtics, that’s who we looked like. Walking the ball up [and] we couldn’t get the ball inbounds, no one wanted to work. We were the cool Celtics and there's nothing about me that's cool, I can tell you that. We don't play basketball cool."
Topic: Doc rips into the team after tonight's terrible effort (Read 14305 times)