With former Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers having been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this month, Rivers has been taking us back to the era of the Ubuntu Celtics often as he recounts one of the campaigns that helped build the legacy that made his entry into the Hoops Hall possible.
Asked in a recent interview with "The Sideline" host Andy Katz when he knew that iteration of the team was going to be able to get across the finish line in pursuit of a title. "I would say early on," replied Rivers. "I remember in training camp, the first day, the second unit kicked the first unit's butt. They destroyed them. And we were in Rome. People forget that. We were in training camp in Rome. The bus ride was a good hour away,
and I remember that bus ride and the talk."
"The second group was letting Kevin (Garnett) and Paul (Pierce) and Ray (Allen) have it," he continued. "(James) Posey was huge. And he kept saying, 'Yeah, nothing's going to be given to you'. And I remember Kevin just quiet, which, (with) Kevin Garnett, quiet is almost an oxymoron. That never happens, right?"
"And that next day, that practice was vicious," said Rivers of that fateful moment. "We had to stop it. It was so, it got contentious."
"It got physical, it got personal, and the first team dominated the practice. And that's (when I) remember telling (Celtics assistant) Tom Thibodeau on a bus ride back, 'We're going to be hard to beat'."
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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Doc Rivers on when he knew Ubuntu Boston Celtics could win it all
