“If we lose a 3-1 lead, it ain’t cause of the coach, it’s cause we didn’t step up”: Shaquille O’Neal backs Doc Rivers for his ill-famed reputation of choking playoffs lead

Doc Rivers is considered one of the greatest coaches in modern basketball, but being infamous for blowing 3-1 leads will always haunt him.

Doc Rivers is among the most elite basketball coaches in NBA history. Being a professional head coach in the American Association for over 23 years now, Rivers has racked up a pretty respectable resume – Coach of the Year, NBA Champion, 3-time All-Star Game coach, and was named in the Top 15 coaches of all-time.

However, if there is one particular thing that draws criticism towards Doc is his infamous 3-1 playoffs series chokes he has had multiple times in his career. Having this undesired feat to his name, the 60-year-old is the only coach in history to blow three 3-1 leads in the postseason.

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Over the years, Rivers has received a lot of hate for his postseason failures. However, recently, Shaquille O’Neal came to the veteran coach’s defense on the recent episode of NBAonTNT:

“I keep telling you’ll be putting too much on us on the coaches anyway. If we lose a 3-1 lead, it ain’t cuz of the coach, it’s cuz we didn’t step up. … If we’re up 3-1, coaching got nothing to do with us losing 3-4 games in a row, that’s on us.”

Doc Rivers talks about all the instances his team has blown a 3-1 lead in a playoffs series

After leading the first round of the 2022 playoffs 3-0, the Sixers have surprisingly lost Games 4 and 5. With the series now 3-2, haters have brought up the ‘3-1 lead blown’ narrative for Doc Rivers in the past few days.

And yesterday, a frustrated Doc spoke about all the 3 times his team blew a 3-1 lead and gave justifications for all of them.

“My Orlando team [in 2003] was the eighth seed. No one gives me credit for getting up against the [Detroit] Pistons, who won the title [in 2004]. That was an eighth seed. I want you to go back and look at that roster. I dare you to go back and look at that roster. And you would say, ‘What a hell of a coaching job.’ Really.

“I mean, the Clipper team [in 2015] that we lost 3-1, Chris Paul didn’t play in the first two games, and was playing on one leg, and we didn’t have home court. And then the last one [when the Clippers lost to the Denver Nuggets in 2020], to me, is the one we blew. That’s the one I took. We blew that. And that was in the bubble. And anything can happen in the bubble. There’s no home court. Game 7 would have been in L.A.”

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Rivers then went on to say that he wanted to win this Philly-Toronto series so that “we don’t have to talk about it”.

“But, it just happens. So I would say with me, some of them is…I gotta do better always. I always take my own responsibility. And then some of it is, circumstances happen. This one, let’s win it, and we don’t have to talk about it.”