Paul Pierce Defends Doc Rivers From the 3-1 Criticism, Shifts the Blame on Superstars

It seems we love to tear the athletes we watch more than building them up. That’s especially true of anyone who has had great success in their career. Just look at what LeBron James has to endure from the Skip Baylesses and Stephen A. Smiths of the world, day in and day out. Coaches aren’t immune to this phenomenon, either.

Well, there’s an entire cottage industry around what coaches deserve to be on the hot seat and eventually fired. Many of these coaches are past champions, which proves that sports really is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ business.

Doc Rivers is one coach that people love to hate. That’s in part because he’s currently presiding over a disaster of a Milwaukee Bucks team that doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Rivers also has the ignominious record of presiding over three different instances of a team losing a 3-1 playoff lead.

Still, Doc coached the 2008 Celtics to an NBA title, and he brought them back to the Finals two years later. He has a 58.3% career winning percentage in the regular season. And, despite those blown 3-1 leads, he’s still above .500 in the playoffs. Yes, Doc’s numbers fight his case. And now, Paul Pierce has also come out with an impassioned defense of his former coach.

“I think he’s great at motivating. I think he’s great out of timeouts. I don’t think Doc is overrated because when I look at it, his failures from the 3-1 that people kind of go to with Doc, I put that on the players,” Pierce said on the most recent episode of No Fouls Given. 

Paul Pierce says Doc Rivers is not overrated

“I think he is great at motivating. I think he is great out of timeouts. I don’t think Doc is overrated because when I look at his failures from the 3-1 that people kind of go to with Doc, I put that on the players. I mean, come on.… pic.twitter.com/zPXVvJo7Sp

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“I mean come on,” Pierce continued. “If you got superstars, they can win you one game in four, a great player, without no coaching. You gotta show up.” 

Pierce later called out Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Kawhi Leonard, and Paul George, specifically, for not coming through. At this point, Danny Green and Wosny Lambre stepped in to counter Pierce, saying that a lot of the hate Doc gets is self-inflicted.

“It’s always someone else’s fault,” Lambre said, while Green laughed at Doc ridiculously, once saying that people don’t give him credit for getting to three wins in a series (before blowing it). “You can’t say that type of s***,” said Green.

But then, Green also tried to give the coach some credit, and meet in the middle. “Doc’s not highly rated, but he is a good coach, and he has good speeches in the locker room,” he said.

When Doc’s career is all said and done, he’s going to have a complicated legacy. Nobody can take away his ring, but there’s no denying that there have been a lot of bumps in the road since then. And he hasn’t helped matters with some of his comments.

It’s good to see Pierce defending his former coach, but some criticism is definitely warranted, too.