The Boston Celtics head coach is not worried about the Los Angeles Lakers and still considers Miami Heat as the team to beat....
Doc Rivers has been theman behind all the success that has come the Boston Celtics way in the past few years.
He was responsible for the 2008 Championship as Boston introduced itself to the basketball world with the Big Three line up of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. And it was this master minded tactician who led the Greens
all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, despite all their injury problems and the age of his roster.
Over the years, Rivers has established a reputation of hard task master. He does what he has to, and that became quite evident last season when he put Allen on the bench and shifted Garnett - an established power forward - to the
centre position thus allowing Brandon Bass to fill in at number 4 which made it very hard for teams to adjust. The result was that the C's kept on winning, and nearly made it into the NBA Finals, but fell flat against the brilliance of LeBron James and his
gritty Miami Heat.
Over the summer, the Celtics lost Allen to Heat but have certainly made their roster stronger by the additions of players like Jason Terry and Courtney Lee.
They are certainly genuine title contenders, perhaps the second best bet from the East after Miami. But in there way to the glory, another team has arisen, their long time rivals - the Los Angeles Lakers. After the acquisition
of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard in the off- season, the Lakers are deemed by many as the best team in NBA, at least on paper.
But to Rivers, the main focus of attention is still Miami Heat, the team which has dismatled the Greens for the last two years.
“Honestly, I don't care about the Lakers...I have my eye squarely on Miami. I come up to my players during the year-they're in the facility now-I bring up Miami every single day to them. I want them to hate them. I want them to
beat them. That's gotta be our focus.”
The Celtics have their work cut out if they want to challenge the reigning NBA Champions.
One main issue they will need to focus on is their ability to get to the free throw line – something which Rivers realizes.
“We have to get to the foul line because when you get to the foul line-that's one of the big things now in our league-if you can get to the foul line, you can become a dominant defensive team because you get to set your defense
every single time.”
There will certainly be other changes needed to counter Miami, matching the athleticism being the foremost, but for Rivers, sparking a rage against Heat in his players seems to be the step number one.
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