Doc Rivers Finds Beauty in Close Defensive Battles, If Celtics Win (Video)

by Ben Watanabe on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 7:56AM

PHILADELPHIA — Doc Rivers does not mind a good defensive battle, and he could have found a lot of beauty in Wednesday’s slugfest if one crucial condition had been different.

“If we’d won,” Rivers said following the Celtics’ 82-75 loss in Game 6, in which they shot 33 percent from the field. “Close games are great to me. I don’t care what the score is, I really don’t. You know, what I don’t think people give credit to is people that play so hard defensively that you get stops. I don’t see why that’s an ugly thing. When guys are defending and diving on the floor and taking charges, give guys credit for contesting shots.

“I thought there was a lot of that, too. We did miss open shots, there’s no doubt, but their defense was good.”

The Celtics’ loss forced a Game 7 on Saturday to determine the Eastern Conference semifinal series.

Check out Rivers’ complete postgame news conference in the video above.

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