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Doc Rivers Went to See ‘Argo’ Instead of Watching Election Results, Left Before Seeing End of Movie

BOSTON — As far as presidential elections go, Tuesday was rather anticlimactic. President Barack Obama was re-elected by a 97-vote margin in the electoral college and most major networks declared Obama the winner by around 11:30 p.m.

Even that was too nerve-wracking for Celtics coach Doc Rivers. The unabashed Obama supporter had to flee to a dark movie theater to watch Argo in order to get away from the nonstop news coverage of poll results.

“That was a good evening last night, if you’re a supporter of the president, which I am,” Rivers said shortly before the Celtics played the Wizards at the TD Garden. “That was a lot of fun — nerve-wracking, actually. I went to a movie in the middle of it because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was getting texts from people telling me what was going on, but I didn’t trust that — so I guess I was turning into Karl Rove.”

Like anyone else who remembers or has read about the Iranian hostage crisis, Rivers knows how the events upon which Argo is based turned out. But he does not know how the movie itself ends, because halfway through he was informed that Obama had been re-elected, and Rivers decided it was safe to leave his hiding place.

“I got a text in the middle of it that [Obama] won, so I left and I didn’t see the end of Argo,” Rivers said. “And it was terrific, so I’ve got to go pay again, which if you know me, that really [ticks] me off, to have to pay twice.”

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