ShareThisBOSTON - If you walked into TD Garden Wednesday night and didn't know any better, you'd think Doc Rivers and Gregg Popovich were coaching two of the NBA's struggling teams.
For much of the last month, Rivers' pregame talks have been dominated by words about who isn't playing. The player du jour right now is Kevin Garnett, who has missed four games with a somewhat mysterious calf injury.
Popovich came to Boston in a sour mood. His San Antonio Spurs were outscored by the run-and-gun New York Knicks on Tuesday, 128-115, galling numbers for a coach who holds the tenets of defense close to his heart.
"Right now I think we're a good basketball team," Popovich said, "but we have to step up defensively. Luckily it's a little early. Maybe I can get these things across."
Despite the words of their coaches, the Celtics and Spurs are not middling NBA teams. They happen to own the best records in the Eastern and Western Conferences, respectively, and that's what made this potential NBA Finals matchup so intriguing.
In a running, up-and-down affair, the Celtics did just enough to hold off the Spurs, 105-103. Boston spurted late in the fourth quarter and led, 105-96, with 56 seconds left but nearly blew it. Two turnovers and two shocking missed free throws by Ray Allen with eight seconds left held the door open for the Spurs.
However, Manu Ginobili's 3-pointer with a second left was blocked by Paul Pierce and the Celtics survived.
"We had so many things go wrong in a row," said Rivers. "It's great to get the win but we did it in an unconventional manner."
These are two teams that are doing an awful lot of winning right now. While much of the NBA has focused on the soap opera that is the surging Miami Heat, the Spurs went about compiling an outstanding start to this season. The Spurs were 14-1 in November and 13-2 in December, both franchise records. They came into the Garden sporting both a league-best 29-5 record and a black eye.
The shiner came courtesy of the Knicks. Before a sellout crowd, New York shot 55 percent from the floor and ran away from the Spurs in the fourth quarter. The shaky defense is both troubling and confusing for Popovich.
"It's something I haven't figured out," he said. "We just go through periods, like last night, we had numerous people who guarded no one. It wasn't like the bigs didn't hit the board or they ran a certain play and we couldn't cover it. Everybody just basically sucked."
Asked for an example of the troubles, he said: "It would be like Ray Allen ... someone comes and sets a pick for him and he comes off the pick and two seconds later you start to chase him. That's probably not a good thing."
Popovich said that he doesn't look at his team's record with reverence. Instead he looks at defensive statistics he clearly does not like. He pointed out that the Celtics are first in the league in defense (90.8 ppg.) and third in field goal percentage defense (43 percent). His team isn't close to those numbers.
"We scored, what, 115?" he said of the Knick loss. "If you told me we'd score 115, I'd say we were going to win about 77 games. That's based on the way we played defense in the past."
As for his team's showy record, Popovich said "We're not the Chicago Bulls of Michael's era. We've had a good run. Great. Congratulate yourselves on a good start. For me, it comes down to how hungry the group is as the year goes on."
Rivers has kept his team hungry despite its injuries. Rajon Rondo missed a stretch with a badly sprained ankle and now Garnett is down. Without his starting five intact, the coach is mixing and matching lineup and hoping to keep the ship rolling.
That certainly occurred on this night. Rondo looked fully recovered and was fabulous, stringing up his second triple-double of the season with 12 points, 22 assists and 10 rebounds. Allen continues to shoot the lights out (game-high 31 points) and Paul Pierce (18 points) and Glen Davis (23) stepped up big.
The Celtics knew they needed a big effort, especially with the Spurs coming in off a loss. The Lakers may be the reigning champion out West, but no one would be surprised to see a healthy San Antonio team, led by the veteran trio of Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, fight through the playoffs come June. The Celtics would dearly love to be the team waiting for them, especially if they can get healthy.
"Two great defensive teams, huh?" Rivers said with a chuckle. "The fact that we shot 61 percent and won by two is scary. At home. That tells you how good that team is."
(Contact Kevin McNamara at kmcnamar(at)projo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Providence Journal
