Doc Rivers: “I’ve heard some silly talk… “

Doc Rivers spoke this morning with Dennis & Callahan on WEEI:

On the trash-talking:

The thing with Kevin is, Kevin talks the whole game — to himself, to
us, to his teammates and to the other team. So I don’t know who he’s
talking to, and I don’t think the other team does, as well. Again, it’s
funny. My first year with Kevin I realized that’s who he was. We had
one game and before the game I said to the guys, ‘Look. We have to play
the game. Respect the game. No talking.’ At halftime we were awful and
I went in and said, ‘Kevin, everybody. Go back to who you were. Play
basketball.’ That’s who a couple of my guys are. Do I wish they didn’t
do it? Yeah. But that’s who they are. I’m not going to try and change
it.

If they had picture phones back in the day who would have been likely to have been the Greg Oden of his day? Besides Wilt?

He probably would have done it on purpose. That’s the difference.
When I saw it, I started thinking about my teammates because that’s why
what I can only think about, and the first one that came to mind was
Kevin Willis. That’s Kevin right there. He would do that. [Dennis] Rodman, maybe.

I was actually talking to Spud Webb and we were laughing about this,
it’s funny, we were naming teammate after teammate. We almost named
them all. I remember the first time I heard a cell phone in the locker
room, it was my ninth year in the league. I played my entire career
basically without cell phones.

On potential trades:

I don’t think so. I really don’t. I’ve heard some silly talk over
the last two or three days about trades that we’ve been discussing,
which I wish I had I had known about. They were interesting. Obviously
if we can improve our team we’re going to. But, I don’t think there’s a
trade out there that we can pull off and I don’t mind if we don’t.

Is every game just as important as the next, and does that
apply when you’ve got Orlando, Atlanta and the Lakers back to back to
back?

It does apply, having said that, we understand that these are three
great games to be able to play. Obviously, I wish we had more time
between games to be able to prepare for them. After the game they do go
back to normal games, but they’re fun games. Coaches look forward to
them and players look forward to them as well. Once they’re over then
they become one of the 82. There’s no doubt that players look forward
to them.