Halftime Hype

As a head coach in the NBA, one must be extremely aware of various statistics and facts. Evidently, Doc Rivers is not. In an interview with ESPN 980, Rivers forgot a key detail or two about his match-up against the Lakers in 2008. Here's what he had to say:

"They still have not beaten our starting five. Our starting five against the Lakers starting five has a ring...We will be back strong and Perk will be there next year if there's a game seven."

Rivers has clearly forgotten that Andrew Bynum did not play in the 2008 playoffs. You read that correctly: 0 minutes. In fact, in May 2008 Bynum underwent arthroscopic surgery on his kneecap. C'mon Doc, even a quick look at Wikipedia would have revealed that. Already Doc isn't looking too sharp. Since Bynum - the Lakers' starting center - was out, Rivers is factually incorrect in his assertion that his starting five "against the Lakers starting five has a ring."

In addition, Trevor Ariza was coming off an injury at the time and only averaged 6.63 minutes throughout the '08 Finals and didn't even play the first game. To elaborate:

• Game 1: Did not play
• Game 2: 0-1 from the field, 0 points, and 2 rebounds in 7:19 minutes of playing time
  
• Game 3: 2-3 from the field, 0-1 for three-pointers, 4 points, 1 rebound, and 1 assist in 8:49 minutes of playing time
• Game 4: 2-2 from the field, 1-1 on three-pointers, 1-2 on free throws, 6 points, 5 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 block in 8:43 minutes of playing time
• Game 5: 0 shot attempts, 0 points, 0 everything except for 1 foul in 1:15 minutes of playing time
• Game 6: 1-3 from the field, 1-2 on free throws, 0-1 for three-pointers, 3 points, 1 rebound in 9:04 minutes of playing time
  

Source: Yahoo! Sports

Basically Ariza, who was a starter last season and showed us he's capable of scoring with a 14.9 points per game average, was virtually nonexistent. In spite of Ariza's limited minutes, the Lakers assigned Vladimir Radmanovic to guard Paul Pierce, who would later win Finals MVP at the end of the series. Congrats, Paul, you managed to do well against a guy who Lakers coach Phil Jackson dubbed a "space cadet." In Pierce's defense, he also deserved an Academy award for his brilliant acting skills in, what is fair to assume, faking an injury then coming back to score 15 points in the third quarter.

On another note, as Trey Kerby of Yahoo! Sports pointed out,"the problem with saying that is that the average age for Boston's team is measured in tree rings. And there are a lot of tree rings on the inside of those old oaks. And when there are that many rings, injuries start happening." In other words, obviously when you have older players on your team, injuries are nearly inevitable.

There's no questioning Doc Rivers as a coach or as a person. From what one sees on T.V., he seems like an intelligent and gracious man. His comment, though, was downright arrogant - and extremely incorrect.