Every week, Danny Ainge calls into the Toucher & Rich show and serves up a measured dose of Celtics news, and–usually–one or two great stories from the past.
On Demarcus Cousins:
I can’t comment on players from other teams [c’mon, what else did you expect? –ed.]
On players with personality issues in general:
I think that’s a problem in any locker room. We have good character on our team. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to have players that are disruptive to your team on the court and off the court.
On the roster:
The one thing we could really use is a go-to scorer. It would be nice to find another player that’s a reliable scorer night in and night out. Ideally it would be a big man.
On the recent schedule, and losing three of four:
This just happens–in the NBA, winning is sometimes very fragile, just a made free throw or a missed free throw. I think that we are not a perfect team, but our guys are gritty and play really hard, and I’ve been impressed with them.
On Marcus Smart & the team’s defense without him:
Marcus gives us depth. You can always get by without any one of your guys for a little while, but it catches up. We need his defense and we need his versatility. Marcus had a really good day yesterday. He got out on the court for the first time and he’s running around and felt good. [His return is] probably looking closer to the end of this month or the beginning of the new year.
On Smart being injury prone:
He’s so young and the injuries that he’s had have been so fluky. He plays basketball like a linebacker. Time will tell on that. But he hasn’t had any serious injuries or needed any surgeries.
On potential Celtics all-stars:
The next few weeks will tell if we deserve an all star or not, depending on how we’re playing.
On winning road back-to-backs:
It’s the character of our team. The kids love to play.
On being the “Jared of Chipotle“:
I had no idea about that [Jared from Subway’s legal problems]. I must’ve got like 30 texts after that that said, ‘you can’t use that reference anymore!‘
On golfing with McHale and Bird:
Kevin and Larry probably did the best trash talking on the golf course. We were playing in the playoffs in the early eighties and coach Fitch found out we had been playing golf on an off-day, and he was not happy about it, and he said, “Bird, Ainge, McHale and [Rick] Robey, I’m going to fine you guys each $250 for playing golf on the off-day.” And so Larry, when we come together as a team, said, “Well boys, looks like we better up the stakes in tomorrow’s game.”
Full interview here
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
