Kevin Garnett’s car pulled into the back of Boston Garden, and as soon as he stepped out of it, his new franchise changed. Officially it was the last day of July 2007. It was also the last day of low energy, low volume, and lowered expectations with the Celtics.
It was fitting that a simple thing made KG late for his introductory press conference: looking up. He was ushered through the Garden, and that was the only exercise that slowed his heart rate. He gazed up at the sixteen championship banners and twenty-one retired numbers. He asked questions about the various title teams and absorbed all the details.
He didn’t have it entirely, but now he was starting to understand. There was an awakening in him and in the city. He could see evidence of the Celtics’ story, hanging there for all to see. And now he, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen were going to be stitched into this championship quilt.
Rich Gotham and Shawn Sullivan, the team’s president and chief marketing officer, met him for the first time. They each shook his hand, and Gotham thought, This guy is like a nuclear reactor. His intensity and excitability animated the arena, and everyone there that day caught it and was infused with the same thing.
Gotham, in his fifth season with the organization, had often spoken of a day when the Celtics’ raised business floor would in turn raise their business roof. Well, this was that day. Before heading into the press conference, KG had a word with Gotham and Sullivan about marketing, promotion, and people who might come to them saying they represent him.
“One thing for you guys to always keep in mind: In all our dealings, if you don’t hear it from me, it ain’t happening,” he said. “You might see people around me, but no one else is running my shit. I run my own game.”
They were going to love working with him. There wasn’t anyone in the entire organization like him.
Garnett, Pierce, and Allen hadn’t played a game together yet, but Celtics fans were already calling them the Big Three. Those same fans, for the first time in years, joyfully went to websites and mobile phones and virtual ticket windows, making sure they’d have the best seats for the best games of the winter and spring.
Doc Rivers was as excited as everyone else, but he also had to do things that no one else did. He’d be the one managing egos. He’d be the designer of an offense that would, realistically, require sacrifices from each of them. He’d be the No, we’re not doing that at the end of paths previously filled with smiles and head nods. He’d push them. He’d piss them off.
Those things couldn’t wait until camp or even two weeks from now. At the press conference, full of gleaming smiles and summer laughter, Pierce, Garnett, and Allen all said encouraging things. Now he had to make sure those things happened. As they shook hands, told jokes, and made family introductions, Rivers got the trio’s attention.
“Hey, guys. Can I get ten minutes?”
The four of them went to his Garden office.
“We’re going to win the championship this year,” he told them. “I want you to know that. But I’m going to need you guys to buy into me, and I’m going to need you guys to sacrifice stuff. We’ll talk about it later, but I need that on record now. I need you to know that you’re not going to be able to do things the way you’ve done them.”
They all said they understood, and all said they agreed with the coach. He wanted to plant the seed then because he knew he wouldn’t see them again until September. He also realized that saying yes in the summer, surrounded by friends and family, was easy. The challenge would be doing it in the fall.
A few weeks after the press conference, Rivers sat near the window of a restaurant, with a view of Boston’s busy Newbury Street. He learned that it was always good to have a notebook nearby because ideas come at odd times and from odd things. As he looked outside, he saw a group of tourists riding in a vehicle that millions of New Englanders knew by its shorthand. It was a duck boat.
He immediately jotted down, duck boat talk.
Locally, duck boats weren’t associated with tourists. Anyone in the region knew them as the official transportation of championship parades. When the Big Three returned to town just before the official start of training camp, Rivers told them all to meet him one morning at his condo. His place, downtown, was in the same neighborhood where these elaborate two- and three-mile championship parties snaked through the Boston streets.
The first raucous and frigid one, in February 2002, drew more than one million people to City Hall. There was another one in February 2004, and once again more than one million people attended. It got even bigger and flashier six months later when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in eighty-six years. Just as that party was cleaned up and quieted, the Patriots inspired another one in February 2005.
Pierce knew what the boat symbolized, but he had no idea what his coach had in mind. And why was he doing it at eight a.m.? KG, forever plugged in and unfiltered, had them all laughing with his skepticism.
“What the fuck is this thing? I’m not getting on that. Where are we going? Are we going in the water? Seriously, Coach. What are we doing?”
Rivers looked at the three stars of his team, already comfortable and enjoying each other’s company. He liked that. But they needed to hear what he had to say first, a more in-depth version of the talk he’d begun the day of the press conference.
“This is the parade route,” he said. “When you win the title, this is the route we will go on. I want you guys to imagine this. Think about the parade.”
The laughter stopped. The players got quiet. The boat began to move. Allen was thirty-three, KG thirty-two, and Pierce a few weeks away from thirty-one. They’d never played in the NBA Finals.
“Listen, I’m going to name you some players in a minute. These are players that I’m saying will never win. You guys are not on the list. But you could be if we don’t win. The reason we won’t win is the reason these players are on the list—great individual players, but everything about them is what they want to do. And they will not do something different to win.
“They want to win, but they want to win on their terms. You can’t win on your terms; you win on the team’s terms. If you’re willing to understand that, we are going to win it.”
Rivers pointed to windows high above Boylston Street and recounted how he’d seen people waving and hanging out of them during parades. He pointed to the Boston Public Library and the spacious area around it. Boston wasn’t a city where people lived their lives and loved their sports. No, Boston was more like a city where people loved their sports and then realized they also needed to have a local government and businesses in order to function. If this Celtics team won here, their stories and quirks and jersey numbers—everything—would be forever honored here.
“Let’s talk about sacrifice,” Rivers said. “What would you give up to win?”
“Whatever is needed,” KG answered.
“Okay, what about shots?”
“How many do you need, Coach?”
“I need all your shots, Kevin,” Rivers joked.
“You can have all of them,” he replied, not joking.
“Really, I don’t need them all. But think about it: You’ve all averaged eighteen, nineteen shots per game. That’s not going to happen. It’s not possible. Your scoring averages will go down. People might say, ‘Ray Allen isn’t playing as well because he’s not averaging twenty, he’s at sixteen.’ Can your ego take that? Because if you can’t, we can’t win.”
They could all visualize how it was going to unfold. This was their team map, their blueprint, being detailed on a boat. Rivers had already gotten them to agree to offensive sacrifices, but he wanted to instill a ferocious defensive ethic, too. In fact, no one knew how Rivers had persuaded a top defensive assistant, Tom Thibodeau, to join his staff.
He didn’t know Thibodeau, but he knew the tree he’d come from. He’d worked for Jeff Van Gundy, and Van Gundy had worked for Pat Riley. They had the same lineage; it was going to work. But Thibodeau had already agreed to a job with the Wizards. He told Rivers that he’d rather be in Boston with him; he’d signed a contract in Washington, though, and it would take some persuasion of his bosses to get him out of it.
Rivers talked with Washington coach Eddie Jordan and got him out of it. Thibs, as he was called, was known for improving any defense. Now he would have one captained by the force and acumen of KG. Rivers’s final point to his stars, though, was that their defensive approach was not going to be only KG’s burden.
“I’m not asking anyone, other than Kevin, to be great on defense. I’m asking that you do it right. Be there. Play team defense. We will cover for you if you need help, but I’m not going to cover for you if you won’t help yourself.”
Allen had never been known for his defense, and he said that he wished he’d paid more attention to it earlier in his career. The conclusion of this ride was revelatory.
“I’m at the point in my life where I need to win,” he said. “I’m going to do what I need to do to win.”
After hearing the words of Allen, who had to sacrifice the most for this to work, Rivers was convinced: Whenever they next rode in a duck boat, these nearly empty streets would be jammed for them.
Danny Ainge and Rivers had already answered several team questions long before the first practice. One of the frequent issues raised was team depth. They had those three All-Stars, but what else?
Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins would round out the starting five. The bench would have to be a patchwork of homegrown draft picks and well-traveled discount finds. Ainge did some budgeting wizardry and got forward James Posey, thirty-one and on his sixth team, to agree to a one-year deal worth $3.5 million. He was set to join twenty-six-year-old guard Tony Allen, along with Leon Powe and Glen “Big Baby” Davis, a pair of power players in their early twenties.
One day Ainge and Rivers sat in Ainge’s office, thinking about the final piece of the roster.
“Man, we gotta add one more shooter,” Ainge said. “Do you like Eddie House?”
“I’ve never liked him,” Rivers said. “But he scares the hell out of me. Whenever Eddie House comes into a game, he scares the shit out of you.”
“Me too! Every time he comes in, I say, ‘Geez, here comes Eddie House.’”
They looked at each other. They knew the book on House. He was exactly the dangerous shooter that they’d said he was, a 3-point craftsman. He’d be their worst defensive player.
“Let’s get him,” Rivers said. “We can protect him defensively. We’ve got a great defensive team.”
House, twenty-nine, was joining his eighth team in eight years. He was signed for $1.5 million.
This was the team, brought together by equal parts vision, luck, and price tag. Rivers hoped that they would fuse into a real group and not just the Big Three and others. His wish began to happen in training camp due to the schedule. The Celtics were one of four teams selected for global exhibition games. It meant that for two weeks, they’d be practicing and eating and socializing in Rome and London.
Rivers enjoyed getaway training camps. He often spoke of peripheral opponents—hometown buddies, moms and dads, wives and girlfriends, agents, flunkies—who were sometimes more formidable than on-court opposition. The coach let everyone know his first rule: no family and friends on this two-week trip. It was for the team only.
He had other things in mind, too. Five years earlier, while at an event in New York, Rivers met a South African man named Kita Matungulu. They had a great conversation that night, and Matungulu told Rivers about a philosophy that had been referenced by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and many others across the African continent. It could be summarized in a single word. Ubuntu. Tutu, the famous South African archbishop, described the concept as the height of interdependence and interconnectedness. It was one person’s acceptance that their success, their very personhood, was linked to another’s. As Tutu described it, “A person is a person through other persons.”
It was a way of being that didn’t ask the individuals to lose themselves. Rather, the idea was to see individuality thrive when it was tied to a collective, and, therefore, it helped everyone. That outlook could be applied to education, politics, the economy… and basketball. Ubuntu. Rivers had Matungulu speak to the team about it, and its essence became the foundation on which they’d build their season.
Anyone who was around the Celtics in Rome could see how naturally they interacted. They ate meals together and took tours together. They were all unashamedly in awe, together, as they roamed the Vatican and looked up at the detailed artistry of the Sistine Chapel. Perkins immediately thought of his religious grandparents in Texas and said he needed to bring them to Italy to see Michelangelo’s work.
They toured the Colosseum and reimagined gladiators fighting before fifty thousand Romans. They all decided to shave their heads in honor of the new bald stars, Garnett and Allen. They all kicked soccer balls and tried to learn about futbol from Italian star Alessandro Del Piero.
And like those gladiators, they fought hard. Their first practice was intense, with the veterans of the second team, Posey and House, getting in the faces of KG and Pierce. They were brothers, indeed, but passionate ballers, too. They nearly came to blows in that first practice. Then, afterward, they got on a bus—without cell service—and talked with each other as the vehicle moved slowly through Roman traffic.
By the time they arrived back in Boston, they were a transformed team, immersed in the Ubuntu ethic. They’d begun saying the word as they broke their huddle and approached the court. But as timing would have it, they had to wait in queue before they could present their case to the public.
They returned to a city that was riveted by historic, postseason baseball. Again. Three years earlier, in 2004, the Red Sox were the first team in baseball history to rally from a 0–3 deficit to win a series, against their hated rival, the New York Yankees, no less. It was the signature achievement of their World Series run. While the Celtics were away in London and Rome, the Sox had rallied from a 1–3 ALCS deficit to win a series once more.
Their game seven pennant winner was the climactic moment of the postseason because, afterward, they swept Colorado in the World Series. Which, three days before the Celtics’ home opener, triggered yet another million-person party in Rivers’s neighborhood.
And that wasn’t the only competition. The Patriots were undefeated, 8–0, and crushing opponents by an average score of 41–15.
If the Celtics were a dud, they’d be ignored in this market. Rivers and the players were confident that wouldn’t happen, and they’d begin to prove it on the second day of November. The only worry, truly, on Rivers’s mind was the health of his father, Grady. The coach had been so surprised by a phone call from his brother in Chicago about his father being taken to the hospital that he’d planned to leave Europe.
His father never complained and never got sick, so Rivers thought this must be serious. He talked to his father, and he said he was fine. There was nothing to worry about, and he wanted his son to focus on work. When he got back to Boston, he thought of taking another trip to Chicago. He could easily get there and spend a couple of days with his dad. Once again, his father talked him out of it. He was assured that things were good. He turned his attention to the season.
Everything about their first game at Boston Garden was different from the recent past, including tip-off time. It was scheduled to begin at eight p.m., a sure sign that it was locally and nationally televised. The ESPN/ABC cameras skipped the Celtics the previous year, so this felt like a league reentry.
Winners, and symbols of winning, were around them and even under them. Before the game, Celtics ownership officially renamed the team’s famous parquet floor after Red Auerbach. The franchise architect’s signature was neatly inscribed onto the court.
Even the game introduction was different. The marketing team had been busy in August and September, creating new campaigns and hype videos that focused on the now. In the past few years, with all the eighteen-, nineteen-, and twenty-year-old kids, they had no choice but to sell potential and hope. Not now. They’d all been upgraded.
The arena went dark, and the screens above the court showed the recognizable eyes of Allen first, then Garnett, and finally Pierce. There were vignettes from the weight room and the court. There were celebrations and screams. This was going to be fun.
The night really couldn’t have gone any better. The opponent, Washington, contributed by giving the fans a fun storyline to follow. The Wizards’ leading scorer, Gilbert Arenas, wrote a blog in which he guaranteed that the Celtics would lose their first game. There was already enough emotion in the building, but Arenas’s words provided a bonus.
It was over early. And it played out just as Rivers described as they took their tour of the parade route.
In the first few minutes, for example, Allen drove in the lane and immediately drew a double-team. He could have put up a shot but found Perkins alone by the hoop, and the big center converted an easy score. Garnett collected 4 rebounds in the first three minutes and could be heard, nonstop, shouting defensive instructions.
Pierce, meanwhile, played with his usual cool pace and didn’t force any shots early. He made a couple of shots in the first quarter of what he used as a feeling-out process. In the second quarter, he and his teammates buried Washington. The ball movement and chemistry were too much for the Wizards, so Pierce had 15 points in the quarter, and the Celtics surged to a 22-point halftime lead.
After that, it was lockdown time and, in the end, playtime. The marketing team showed an old American Bandstand video from the 1970s, soundtracked by the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing.” Platform shoes, bell bottoms, frayed jackets, colorful miniskirts, and ponchos. The video had it all, and no one in the building enjoyed it more than Garnett. He pulled teammates out of their seats to enjoy the hilarity with him. He lost it when the montage went to a dancing, bearded soloist with “Gino” written on his T-shirt.
The Garden hadn’t been this alive on a Friday night in years. The final was 103–83, and even then, each member of the Big Three said the team could be a lot better. As it was, Pierce had 28 points, and he made them all look easy. Garnett showed his diversity with 22 points, 20 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocked shots. Plus, no Celtic since Bill Russell had defended like this. Allen, the one who knew he had to give up the most, showed his willingness to do it. He took just ten shots, nine fewer than Pierce and seven fewer than Garnett, but he still had 17 points and 4 rebounds. He was good defensively, too.
A sign in the stands read, “Too early to predict 82–0?”
The next game was in Toronto on Sunday afternoon. As the team’s chartered plane traveled there late Friday night, the players had what was now their normal routine: loud music, entertaining stories, poker games in which the stakes steadily rose. Rivers and his assistants sat in the front, the team’s media occupied the back, and everything else belonged to the players. It wasn’t just a physical space. Rivers was adamant that he wanted the players to be as authentic as possible, even if their music and language shocked the sensibilities of those outside their group.
In Toronto, it seemed as if Rivers had barely rested his head when his cell phone rang. He looked at the time: four thirty a.m. He looked at the caller: his brother. He began to cry, even before hearing the news.
“Hey, Glenn,” his brother began to say.
His father was gone, and that was hard enough to accept. Then there was the thought that he should have left Rome, or Boston, to see him alive one more time. There was practice in a few hours, and he told the team the news. He told the players that he had to go back to Chicago, but before he left, he reminded them about the gift of great parents and how important that was for each of them.
The team would have to take on the Raptors the next day without his guidance.
There was something about this team, and sports in general, that provided a balm. While the Celtics were playing against the Raptors, they didn’t realize that their coach was at his parents’ house watching them, along with twenty family members. They weren’t crying. They were cheering and yelling and hanging on every call.
In his absence, but within his view, the Celtics played well enough to win. This was the luxury, though, of having three stars. With Pierce having an off night on 4 of 17 shooting, Allen was there with a 33-point afternoon, including a game-winning 3 in the final seconds. Afterward, the team dedicated the win to Rivers. Garnett asked reporters and fans to pray for the family. Even in their low moments, this group seemed to get it right.
When Rivers stayed in town for a few days, his mother pulled him aside.
“What are you doing after the funeral, in the morning?” Betty Rivers asked her son.
“I’m sticking around for dinner,” he said.
“You guys have a game tomorrow,” she scolded.
“Mom, I know. But it’s Dad’s funeral.”
“Your dad’s funeral is at eleven a.m. Your game is at seven thirty p.m. No offense, but what are you doing here? Your dad would say, ‘Go do your job.’ If you want to honor your dad, you honor him by being at the funeral and speaking. And giving us love. You’ve been here for three days now. It’s time for you to go.”
It wasn’t something that he had said aloud, but he really wanted to win the title, for himself and his father. He listened to his mother and got back to work. The players gave him applause and hugs when they saw him enter the locker room. He didn’t realize until halftime that he was still wearing the black suit and tie that he’d worn to the funeral.
And so the Celtics picked up as they were when Rivers last saw them. He was judging them on something specific, and it went back to the duck boat conversation in August. The best teams in the NBA had the best defenses, and his challenge to them was to be the number one defense in the league.
The expectation had been set, and they played as if they were Olympic sprinters trying to outrun the target. They had a dizzying pattern. They’d win in eight- to ten-game clusters, answer a question about their team before the question could be fully formed, lose a close game, and then begin the winning cluster again.
They began the season with an eight-game winning streak, lost, and then ran off twelve wins in thirteen games. Before you thought of asking how legitimate their defense was, they held the Knicks to 30 percent shooting and 59 points for an entire game. Before you could wonder if anyone outside of the three could carry the team for a night, there was Perkins tying Garnett for a team-high 21 points—along with 9 rebounds—in a win over the Lakers. How about the bench? Got it: In back-to-back games, Posey went for 17 and 4 and then a nice 10 and 10.
They rolled past the Lakers twice, took out both of last season’s Eastern Conference finalists, the Cavaliers and Pistons, and got an 8-point win against the champion Spurs.
Slowly, with no reflection on it or self-awareness of it, Rivers was doing some of the same things as the coaches he admired. Riley and Phil Jackson would have loved the idea and execution of the duck boat talk. Rivers talked about his team so much that it was easy to forget that this was also the best team he’d been a part of. The players had something to prove, and so did he. They heard insatiable critics in their ears, and so did he.
He still didn’t want to be part of an analysis on his own coaching. He just woke up and started to move, thinking about some task or another that he had to do. Then he checked it off. His team played basketball in the same way. There was a task, at home or somewhere across North America, and they went to it. Then they checked it off.
Their collective personality was tied into their style of play, fearless and complete. They must have known, didn’t they, that teams coming together so suddenly didn’t usually win so soon like this. They kept sprinting to that expectation and beyond. At their best, there didn’t appear to be a team anywhere that could stop them.