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Ok Ill admit I was one from the day he came in I could find 10 things wrong with him every game and wanted him out of town. Once we traded for Ray and KG I was thrilled but knew it meant that we would keep Doc. Fast forward to the ATL series, I thought Doc did an awful job and was pissed that it took him 7 games and I kept saying we will never win with Doc. It wasnt until game 2 against the Cavs that I started liking Doc, we watched him transform into a very very very good coach during the playoffs and then outcoach Phil in the finals!

THANK YOU DOC!

I was one of biggest Doc critics from the start! I thought we would never win a ring with him coaching.

During course of this season I have noticed progress he has made in game management. There were still quite a few games where I wasn`t happy with him but he grew with the team! With him being a players coach and a good communicator this was a perfect team for him. We had the individual talent we just needed chemistry and ubuntu! He really made a team out of these players!

I am happy to eat crow!

Thank you, Doc!

I'm right here.........

Let me be the first to say that for all of Doc's faults (and there are many), he did a fantastic job in the Finals. Congrats. He can stay one more year and then we need a real coach.

coaching is overrated. You give any moron that kind of talent and he should be able to win. There are plenty of coaches who could of won a title with the Celtics this year

Where did my first post go?

Doc Rivers, Celtic for Life!!!

Doc Rivers is a Celtic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Doc Rivers. Job well done.

Ji wrote:coaching is overrated. You give any moron that kind of talent and he should be able to win. There are plenty of coaches who could of won a title with the Celtics this year

Sounds like something I use to say, that might be true during the season but when your deep in the playoffs you need a good coach.

nice thread Tricky, props for manning up lol.

I can't believe there are still some people who want Doc gone. i guess they just can't admit they were wrong. seriously, what does the guy have to do?

I have been pretty critical of Doc when talking to friends around here who are C's fans, but he really did do a nice job. I will most certainly eat my past words about him not being a championship-calibre coach.

Tom T deserves deserves a lot of credit as well, however.

Wasn't a fan of hiring Doc. Wasn't a fan of retaining Doc. I liked Doc. I mean who doesn't like Doc as a person? Classy guy, treats players with respect, good at developing the young guys. Has been slow to realize when a young guy is ready to replace an older guy in the line up. But that is an attribute most championship calibre coaches share. My main problem with him in the past has been x's and o's and defense. He did fine on the x's and o's part in the playoffs. And on defense. Well. Who was one of my choices to replace him at the end of last season? Tom Thib. And guess who we hired as an assistant? That hire alone and the fact that Doc didn't let his ego get in the way and deferred to him all but completely on defense was enough to get me in Doc's corner.

ParticleMan wrote:nice thread Tricky, props for manning up lol.

I can't believe there are still some people who want Doc gone. i guess they just can't admit they were wrong. seriously, what does the guy have to do?

LOL I remember hating you during our Doc arguments, Doc really has done a great job since the CLE series and deserves the Celtics fans respect

Doc proved me wrong in this series. Congrats Doc, to a man who's coaching I questioned, but character I never challenged.

I think Doc's a great person, of course I was also never crazy about his coaching either. But he had the talent--a ton of it this year, and mentally, his team was locked in strong especially on the defensive end in the Detroit and LA series. He got the job done, and I'm VERY happy he did. #17 is just SWEEEEET....

First off, great job by Doc! He hadn't ever been out of the first round, and until Detroit had never won a series in less than 7 games. That said, he was definitely making things difficult for himself by benching both House and Tony through the first rounds. I still found myself disagreeing with some of the things that he did, like pulling Ray out of the game in game 3, but I began to give him the benefit of the doubt more and more.

I've been on Doc all year, but I'm happy to say that I was wrong and Doc is THE MAN!!!

Congratulations, Doc Rivers. Overall Doc did a great job in the Finals. I still would have gone to Big Baby over Powe in game 5. But Doc adjusted and played Davis for the first time in game 6.

I always liked Doc as a person but didn't feel that he would be able to led us to a championship. I'm so glad I was wrong about that. Great job, Doc.

I guess I feel the same way about Doc that a lot of you feel about Perkins.** He's certainly not the best possible option and has some fundamental flaws, but at the end of the day he's a nice fit with this particular team, and is just good enough to fill his role. And while there are several better options out there they are unattainable for now, so we should be happy with what we have.

** I'm not in this group, Perk is actually one of my favorite Celtics. I'm using him as an illustrative example because I know he is not overly popular with many on this board (relative to other Celtics players).

I need to make an appearance in this thread... said my piece before in the congrats thread but Taget just stole the thoughts from my brain.

Taget wrote:Wasn't a fan of hiring Doc. Wasn't a fan of retaining Doc. I liked Doc. I mean who doesn't like Doc as a person? Classy guy, treats players with respect, good at developing the young guys. Has been slow to realize when a young guy is ready to replace an older guy in the line up. But that is an attribute most championship calibre coaches share. My main problem with him in the past has been x's and o's and defense. He did fine on the x's and o's part in the playoffs. And on defense. Well.

He's a great person who's been a good player's coach his entire career but has always shown some strategic problems. But this year, they weren't there. This year, especially in the Finals, his substitutions and lineups and such were all effective and it turned out to be maxmimally successful. There is no wrong in the aftermath of a title and I have a plateful of crow that I'm happy to eat.

Maybe now we can say Doc retroactively deserves the COY he really didn't deserve to win back in the day with Orlando, because like David Thorpe said, most NBA coaches couldn't have done with this roster what Doc managed to do. It was epic and it was well-deserved and he was a huge part of it.

Go Doc, congratulations on the title.

The thing that won me over about Doc is that he started off the playoffs being very rigid- Very little change in subtitution patterns (players and time of substituions). By the end of the player he was pretty much a gunslinger, putting in the guys he instinctively thought that fit the situation and not being afraid to do it at any time in the game (Bill Simmons is way off in his assertion that this shouldn't happen in the playoffs). I mean i was positively giddy when JVG started saying things like "I think The lakers need to adjust by...." really multiple times throughout the series. Doc likes to say he didn't coach any different but that just isn't true. I'm actually quite excited about him going into next year. I genuinely felt he improved many of his weak areas and that it portends well for the future.

I'm still here. I still fundementally hate small ball and therefore Doc's neccessity need to go to it.

I guess I agree with the Poster who was talking about how most people feel about Perk is how I feel about Doc.

Doc+ someone else coaching defense [thibs] is great for this team. And small ball did win us game 4. And Doc didn't use it unless it was clearly the move to make [down by 20+ or no Center on the roster when Perk was hurt].

And I have to say no matter how much I dislike his strategy and lack of ability to recognize player development I never could say I didn't like Doc as a person.