After winning the championship..have your opinions on Doc changed?

[Scintan]

Nonsense.  He had the best "big 3" in the game, and the most talent in the Eastern Conference.  I find it amusing that people kept defending him by saying "look at how bad the talent is" prior to this season and, now that he had more talent than anyone else in the conference, that little detail is just ignored.  Meanwhile, the defensive guru who, combined with Garnett's presence, taught this team how to actually play defense, gets ignored.

He was also badly outcoached by Woodson and Brown in the playoffs and nearly lost series to 2 signigicantly lesser teams.

 Doc gave us something to remember FOREVER. So quit spreading your hatred cause its toxic and contagious. I have the perfect vaccine SHUTUP!
Maybe you can do better!
lol  

1.)  The question posed was whether or not the opinion of Doc had changed.  If you can't handle hearing both sides of that answer, don't read the thread.

2.)  If you changed your mind on him, that's your choice to make.  However, calling someone delusional if they didn't think Rivers did a 'wonderful job' is simply ludicrous.  Hence the word 'nonsense'.

But thanks for your needlessly hostile post.....

[Montrossity]

While obviously his personal and coaching staff made a huge difference and made him look better, I do think a lot higher of him now.  I honestly think he learned a lot and improved drastically throughout the playoffs alone.  Do I think hes a great coach?  God no.  But he has proven he has great people skills with his team and creates a great atmosphere and throughout the season (and particularly the playoffs starting in the Detroit series) he has widdled away at many of his gametime coaching deficiencies.  His subbing became much more calculated and practical (with moments of brilliance), he was making less stupid mistakes, and whatever he was doing at halftime clearly was working because the Celts owned third quarters. 

I dont think hes great yet, but he has learned from his mistakes and the freakishly long postseason I think helped him drastically step up his game.  But great or not, he knows when to step back and let his vets take control, and knows when to step in and do it himself and frankly, I think he is an excellent fit for this current team.  I would not trust him in a rebuilding year, but right now, I wouldnt want anyone else. 

[Change]

But thanks for your needlessly hostile post.....

I'm not being hostile, but your comments are stinking up this post. How hard is it for you to be happy for a coach that gone through so much this year? Oh, For God's Sake! Doc lost his Father this past season and he kept his composure and still continued to coach his squad to become WORLD CHAMPS. If that doesn't make appreciate DOC and everything he has done for this team, i don't know what will.

 

[guava_wrench]

Not at all.  I still think he sucks.

I wasn't a big Doc guy previous to this season, but I must admit that he did a wonderful job this past season from wire to wire.  Anyone who can't admit it is, frankly, delusional. 

Nonsense.  He had the best "big 3" in the game, and the most talent in the Eastern Conference.  I find it amusing that people kept defending him by saying "look at how bad the talent is" prior to this season and, now that he had more talent than anyone else in the conference, that little detail is just ignored.  Meanwhile, the defensive guru who, combined with Garnett's presence, taught this team how to actually play defense, gets ignored.

He was also badly outcoached by Woodson and Brown in the playoffs and nearly lost series to 2 signigicantly lesser teams.

You might want to put a colon after "nonsense" instead of a period.

It's comical when you mention Doc being out-coached though the talk across the league is about him out-coaching Jackson.

The idea that Thibideau is ignored is nonsense.

The idea that our talent is so overwhelmingly better when half the board is panicking that we might lose a journeyman like Posey is also questionable.

It is also curious why you conclude that going to 7 games equals being out-coached. Your conclusion from the Atlanta series is quite fanciful. There is a reason Danny wants the team to get more athletic this offseason. The team wasn't built to match up well with a team like Atlanta. Not really the fault of the coach or the players. Nevertheless, they did what needed to be done and won.

[BrickJames]

But thanks for your needlessly hostile post.....

Not at all.  I still think he sucks.

You reap what you sew, Scintan.

[Montrossity]

You cant say he sucks right now.  It takes certain situations for coaches to thrive.  O'Brien was spectacular for us as interim coach, but failed to stand out much since.  Larry Brown has been both super coach and on the hot seat on multiple occasions over a short period of time.  The legendary Zen Master himself coached mediocre at best when stuck with a team of young players and Kobe (every coaches nightmare). Furthermore, theres a reason some coaches cant translate NCAA skills to the NBA.

Honestly, after years of struggling, Doc finally had the team and clubhouse chemistry he could exceed with.  It may not succeed as the team rebuilds in a few years, but as of now, its hard to debate that he did a good job.

[Scintan]

But thanks for your needlessly hostile post.....

I'm not being hostile, but your comments are stinking up this post. How hard is it for you to be happy for a coach that gone through so much this year? Oh, For God's Sake! Doc lost his Father this past season and he kept his composure and still continued to coach his squad to become WORLD CHAMPS. If that doesn't make appreciate DOC and everything he has done for this team, i don't know what will.

 

You were being hostile, you continue to be hostile, and you seem to ignore the point that the question posed by the thread asked whether or not opinions about Rivers had changed after the championship.  I still think he sucks as a coach.  That's not an attack on you and it has nothing to do with whether or not his father died this past season.

Again, if you can't handle the obvious answers to such a thread, don't read the thread.

[Scintan]

But thanks for your needlessly hostile post.....

Not at all.  I still think he sucks.

You reap what you sew, Scintan.

More nonsense.  I've said that he sucks for years.  Pointing out that I still feel the same way in response to a question asking that very same question isn't hostile and it's not "sewing" anything.

[bbc3341]

Look, some guys will just not like Doc no matter what he does. Just like some people will always think KC Jones just rolled the ball out and let LB run the team. I remember going to Vegas and watching this team prior to the KG trade and Doc just struck me as a tireless worker who knew the game and you could see his frustration when some of the guys couldn't get it.

I think it is unfair to judge Doc on the poor records before this season. Danny Ainge inherited a horrible situation and foresaw a 5 year turn around, but he needed a guy who would be willing to coach through that rebuilding. Doc was that guy. He worked hard no matter who was on the team or what their chances were of winning it all. He did a fantastic job of developing some of the younger guys who proved to be valuable trade pieces or contributors to #17. He was able to take a new roster, new coaches, and get them all to buy into his system. Yes, Ainge provided some top notch talent, but Doc still had to coach the team, and he did a great job. Great as defined as achieving the ultimate goal in the NBA.

Hubie Brown gave an interview where he talked about the nuances of NBA basketball and how even the most educated fan fails to understand just how much an effect the head coach has on the game, now Hubie is a coaches coach, no doubt about it, but I also think he knows what he's talking about. He gave Doc high marks - this was an interview with Jim Rome...

As for Doc's rotations, I have to admit to yelling at the TV for Doc to play certain guys and remove other guys, but he played the guys he wanted and it all worked out so I have to concede that maybe he knew what he was doing and going forward I will be a lot less likely to criticize him for his substitution patterns, though I do sympathize with that line of reasoning found in this thread and others, it was hard at times to understand why certain guys were left in games or other guys weren't played at key points, and I'm not just talking about the playoffs. But I think that's just a natural thing for C's and NBA fans in general to do. We do it with the Sox too - pull this pitcher, bring this guy in, etc. It's part of being a fan. Although I don't do it, frankly, at all with the Pats - I think partly because I acknowledge that my football coaching IQ is so lacking, and also because of Belichick's track record.

Bottom line, I've always liked Doc and felt he deserved better than he was getting from some writers, and fans and the C's success this year, I believe, was due in large part to Doc's coaching this season and the work he put in helping Ainge make the transition from where the team was (Vin Baker, etc.) to where they are now.

[nickagneta]

Hey, come one people, the man has a right to his opinion!

I may not agree with but he does have every right to it.

In some cases I happen to think Scintan is right, there have been times when Doc's coaching has not been even good never mind betterthan good.

Where i differ is that I have seen, in my eyes, correction towards making things better and I think I am more prepared to place blame for failure across the shoulders of the players as I am the coach. IMO, Scintan doesn't do that that easily.

Maybe it will take another championship for Scintan to change his mind. Maybe it will take the overcomming of some very large obstacles for Scintan to change his mind. Maybe Scintan never will change his mind. But there's no law that says he can't have a poor opininion on Doc.

I'll say, I think you'e wrong Scintan, dead wrong. I think there are a lot of ways to look at what occured here last year and you are clearly never going to look at this thing in a good way when it comes to Doc. He improved in his bad areas as the season and postseason progress and you are giving Thibodeau way to much credit for what transpired here defensively.

Credit he and the players deserve. All of it and your implied perceptio that Doc deserves little to none of it is IMO as wrong as wrong can get.

[bbc3341]

Did you guys see Scintan's TP to Post ratio - wow! And with so many, you know it isn't a fluke. Pretty much a 4 to 1 Post to TP ratio, that earns some credibility, in my eyes anyway... so, yes, I don't agree totally, but I have to respect the source...

[Scintan]

You might want to put a colon after "nonsense" instead of a period.

Nah.  I'm not writing an English report.  I try to keep the spelling correct and most of the punctuation, but I'm not going to worry about how I frame an offset word/phrase.

It's comical when you mention Doc being out-coached though the talk across the league is about him out-coaching Jackson.

Really?  And how is that?  Assuming that he did out-coach Jackson, whom many people believe is vastly overrated as a coach, how does that magically erase the coaching beatings he suffered at the hands of Woodson and Brown?

The idea that Thibideau is ignored is nonsense.

No, it's not.

The idea that our talent is so overwhelmingly better when half the board is panicking that we might lose a journeyman like Posey is also questionable.

Again, no it's not.  Posey is not the only loss, as you must surely know.  Brown is gone and House is currently not on the roster either.  The team currently has no decent quality backup at center or point guard.  Now, as for "half the board" panicking, that's on them.

It is also curious why you conclude that going to 7 games equals being out-coached. Your conclusion from the Atlanta series is quite fanciful. There is a reason Danny wants the team to get more athletic this offseason. The team wasn't built to match up well with a team like Atlanta. Not really the fault of the coach or the players. Nevertheless, they did what needed to be done and won.

I conclude that he was out-coached in those series because he was out-coached in those series, whether or not they went 7 games.  As for your athleticism argument, that might have actually held some water if the regular season hadn't played out the way it did between the two teams.  

[Bossco]

I think that Danny Ainge bailed doc out this past year. He gave him a team that even he could not fail with. Of course doc gets some credit for us putting up banner 17, but how many other coaches could have done the same thing with this team?

doc still has his warts - they just didn't show as much with the talented and veteran team we had this year.

doc is a nice guy, he works hard, and is good to the press, but for my money he is not that good of an in-game coach (although he showed that he can be in the finals). I hope that he keeps on improving. I judge him not on the results of winning a championship this year, but on his whole body of work here in Boston.

People say he is a great motivator. Do you think that it took much to motivate KG, PP, and RA this year?

In my opinion, he is not a good talent evaluator. It often takes injuries or trades to get him to figure out who can play and who can't on his own team. Danny helped him a lot by making trades. (can't play DWest at point if he isn't on your team anymore). Leon was barely getting garbage time at the beginning of this year. Why did it take so long for doc to figure out that he can play?

 Generally, I don't have confidence that he can create and exploit the match-ups that are on the floor. Actually, I have many criticisms of doc's coaching. I could give countless examples. I could go on and on but the fact is - we won the title with doc as our coach!

I got an idea. How about doc retires and Tom Thibodeau takes over and we can see how much difference that will make?

Another way to look at it: It is hard to complain about doc while we are lifting #17 to the rafters. Maybe he IS the best coach for THIS team NOW. Keep them banners coming doc! #18 anyone?

[Yakmanev]

Has my opinion of Doc changed after winning the title? Yes

Is it just because we won the title? No

Doc always came across to me as someone who LOVED to hear himself talk and wanted to be known as the intellectual coach. I couldn't stand that. I'd just assume hear Dikembe Mutumbo talk about some third world African country charity event with minimal English skills as Doc Rivers talk about how he designed a game winning play that was probably more by luck than anything preordained by Doc himself.

However as much as I thought Doc Rivers was egomanical and set in his ways he finally gave in and started playing Eddie House in Game 6 versus Cleveland after playing Sam Cassell (the black hole) exclusively at the backup PG . For the first time during the Doc Rivers tenure I seen him give in so to speak and start playing the right guys. For the first time I seen a different Doc Rivers. Instead of one who didn't give in and keep House on the bench and kept playing Cassell major minutes who couldn't hit a barn if it fell on him he seen the light at the fans plea and bought into Ubuntu and got the job done rotationally. To the point the "almighty" Phil Jackson didn't have a clue!

(If none of this makes sense I've had quite the bit of Wild Turkey (liquor) so bear with me)

I gues my point is, when it comes to X's and O's Doc is still on shaky ground. But when it comes to helping my lifelong sports team that I love so dearly through family tradition win a championship I am all about saying, "Congrats Bro it's great to have you as a Celtic!"

[micah kenneth]

I have never for one moment thought that Doc Rivers was nothing less than a quality human being, he's a classy individual, articulate and intelligent.
However I don't believe that Doc is one of the better more insightful coaches in the league. There is no doubt in my mind if it had not been for Tom Tibideau his defensive coach we would not have won this championship.
Doc went out and got old man Sam Cassell who was a bust in my opinion, while we needed an experienced pg for Rondo, Cassell wasn't the answer and then to see Doc using Cassell over Tony Allen was mind blowing.
My biggest complaints with Doc is game strategy and how he develops players and uses them in game situations. He is so bad in managing close games more than half the time he makes me scratch my head wondering what he's doing and why he's doing certain things when the game is on the line.
I to this day don't understand why Doc allows Pierce to have the ball up by the half court line with about 10 seconds left on the clock when he usually always turns the ball over, Pierce is an elite player when he catches the ball 20ft and closer to the rim and that quality has been his since he's come into the league but Pierce turns the ball over too often the more he dribbles the ball and Doc hasn't seem to figure this out yet !
Why hasn't Doc figured out in spite of the fact that KG likes to shoot the ball 15ft out from the basket why hasn't Doc required him to play more in the paint to put foul pressure on the opponents and give KG better options for scoring !
The list goes on and on, Doc at best is an average NBA coach with lots of room for learning the game and developing players.