Doc Rivers doesn’t normally pick up the phone during the offseason to chat up other coaches. But this summer, the Boston Celtics’ coach did.
The targets: coaches who have won back-to-back NBA titles and coaches who won once, were favored the next season and didn’t win it.
The subject: what needs to be done — and avoided — to win a second consecutive championship.
Rivers is leaving no stone unturned as Boston, winner of the 2007-08 NBA title, attempts to become the first Celtics team to win consecutive titles in 40 years — 1968-69 was the legendary Bill Russell’s final season.
It’s not easy, and Rivers knows it.
And he’s a tad bit worried about it.
“I do worry about focus,” Rivers told reporters during the Celtics’ media day. “I think we’ll be motivated, but motivated and focused are two different things, and we have to have a great focus.
“I don’t think we realize how hard it’s going to be this year. It’s going to be harder than last year because for everyone else, every time they play us it’s going to have meaning.”
Last season, the addition of hyperintense forward Kevin Garnett, slick 3-point shooter Ray Allen and a cast of capable role players pushed the Celtics to an NBA-best 66-16 record and ended with the team’s first championship since 1986.
But although the Celtics were title stalkers last season, they will start this season as one of the favorites and have to muster the same hunger to get back to the top.
“I’ve been asked a lot about motivation and ‘How are your guys going to be motivated this year?’ ” Rivers said. “And the other question is, ‘Will they buy in again?’ Will they do the same things they did last year to win it? . . . The playing the right way, that can’t go away. If you do it once, you shouldn’t go back and do something different. So, that part of it we have to return to.”
The Celtics were great examples of how to play team defense, and that, more than anything else, propelled them to the title. They were second in the NBA in points allowed (90.29) and led the league in field-goal percentage against (.419). They were third in rebounding margin (plus-3.12).
Paul Pierce (19.6 points per game) and Garnett (18.8) led the way offensively, providing points when the team needed them most.
The scariest part? Rivers thinks the Celtics can be even better.
“We ought to be better,” Rivers said. “I think we can be a better basketball team than we were last year, and that’s our goal. Everything else will fall in place. Our immediate goal is to be a better team than we were last year. Defensively, offensively, we can be better.
“We won because we were a hardworking team, and we did it together. And we have to get back to that.”
