Steve Bulpett, my favorite beat writer, takes on the thankless task of defending Doc Rivers. A contrarian article to be sure, but unlike some writers, he doesn't come across as condescending. Instead, he almost sounds like he knows what kind of fan reaction he's going to get from the column and spends half the column admitting Doc's failures before finally placing more of the blame on the players:
But even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that Rivers is a knucklehead, to accept as fact the coaching crimes that have been ascribed to him would necessitate the indictment of the rest of the staff as well. OK, so Tony Brown, Armond Hill, Dave Wohl, Kevin Eastman and Clifford Ray are idiots, too? Does anyone actually believe these guys aren’t telling the players how to rotate defensively?
The truth is that some people turn lesson into instinct more quickly than others, and, in general, younger players are far more likely to get flustered. The Celts run through their plays in practice and everything looks fine, but what’s going to happen when a defender jumps a passing lane? Too often, the C’s try to make the pass anyway or simply break the play and look for a quick shot.