Doc Rivers is one NBA coach everyone loves to hate, but in his view, his coaching career has been a success.
His track record is a little questionable, most NBA fans will tell you.
Especially when you consider he’s blown three 3-1 leads in the postseason and how his teams have failed to close out postseason series during his 25 seasons as head coach.
But, coming up short is not in his vocabulary.
“But I’ve never come up short, in my opinion,” Rivers told The Athletic. “Come up short? What does that mean? Like, we didn’t win a title? I go back in Philly. I took that job after we lost in the first round 4-0 (to the Celtics in 2020 under Brett Brown). The next year, we win the East in the regular season. All right. We are one game away from the Eastern finals.
“So there’s times where I’m like we’re being evaluated on a different standard. And the great news is I’ve created that standard. So for me, that’s good. But then when the narrative comes that you can’t do it, that’s bulls—. Because I’ve done it and I can do it. It’s just hard to do it. It’s just hard. So I’ve always looked at it that way.”
Does the narrative surrounding Doc bother him though?
“Listen, I’m eighth in wins. I’m fourth in playoff wins,” Rivers said. “My dad used to say something, ‘If somebody said something you would never listen to, why would you ever pay attention to it?’ You know what I mean?
“My numbers don’t lie. I’ve coached for 25 years and I’ve had two losing seasons. And the two losing seasons, we were trying to f—— lose, yeah. So I’ve made the playoffs — whatever, I don’t even know — 21 out of 25 years. It’s almost like Deion Sanders said in that interview. There’s nothing you can say or do that’s going to take away from what I’ve done, and I’ll never allow that.
“Having said that, I want to do more. And to do more, you have to put yourself in situations where you’re going to be criticized if you don’t do it. And I’m fine with that.”
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