Thank you, Doc

Doc Rivers acknowledges the crowd after he was greeted with a standing
ovation upon walking onto the court.

Bill Doyle, the Celtics beat reporter for the Worcester Telegram, asked Clippers' head coach Doc Rivers in his postgame press conference if it was too late to change his mind about leaving Boston. In his response to Doyle's question, Rivers said that coming to Boston was "the best decision I've ever made."

In retrospect, it might also have been the best decision the Celtics have ever made.

Upon being hired before the 2004-2005 season, Rivers was a former Coach of the Year winner. Although he took a lowly Orlando Magic squad to the playoffs in three consecutive seasons without franchise cornerstone Grant Hill -- in the previous year, the eighth-seeded Magic took the top-seeded Detroit Pistons to seven games in the first round of the playoffs -- ownership did not like what they saw out of Rivers at the start of the 2003-2004 season. A 1-10 start was all upper management needed to give Rivers the boot. Fortunately for the Celtics, the Magic will now always remember Rivers as the one that got away.

Rivers' tenure as head coach will go down in Celtics' history as one that turned the franchise around. But things were not always rosy for Doc. From the start, Rivers's coaching style drew controversy. His relationship with superstar Paul Pierce got off to a rocky start, and it took a while for them to see eye-to-eye. In the end, Rivers made Pierce more mature and helped him become a better player.

Many also called for his head after the 2006-2007 campaign (yes, I'm referring to you, Bill Simmons), a season in which the C's won a mere 24 games. Through it all, Rivers stuck to his beliefs and endured through all the trials and tribulations.

His patience was rewarded prior to the 2007-2008 season when the team acquired Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. From there, one of the most iconic and memorable eras in basketball history began. There's no need to rehash everything this group did under Rivers during that six-year stretch, but I'll just pick out some of the big things. There's the 2008 championship and a 56-43 playoff record, two NBA Finals appearances, three conference final appearances, and advancing past the first year in all but one of those six seasons -- Rivers also led the 2004-2005 squad to the playoffs but failed to advance past the Indiana Pacers in the first round.

It cannot be overstated how many times throughout his tenure with the Celtics that Rivers said how much he loved this group. He fully immersed himself with the tradition of the franchise and the passion and culture of this city. "People don't get Boston," Rivers said last night after his Clippers defeated the Celtics, 96-88. "They don't understand, and I think you have to be part of it to get it...It's a special, different place." Rivers also went on to say, "It's a great place to be. I fell in love with the city."

If you want more proof, just go back to his press conference after Game 5 of the 2011 East semi-finals when Rivers said, "I'm a Celtic." He went on to sign a five-year deal that all but ensured that he would in fact remain a Celtic.

Unfortunately, we need to be reminded that sports are still a business. Rivers himself admitted in an interview with the "Felger & Mazz" program on 98.5 The Sports Hub on Tuesday that he walked out on his former club. And as much as fans and others might criticize Rivers for "abandoning" this team, answer this question: if you had the resume and reputation that Rivers has, and had an opportunity to go to a place where the chance of winning a title was much greater than where you were previously, and had the chance to have more power (Rivers is also the Executive of Basketball Operations in L.A.) and make more money, wouldn't you do the same thing?

Let's not remember Doc as the bad guy, because he's not. People are upset with him over leaving, and that's just human nature. So be it. Let's remember him for what he did while he was here. He was the third-winningest coach in team history with 416 wins behind Tommy Heinsohn (690) and arguably the greatest coach of all-time in Red Auerbach (1192). As he said himself, he will always be apart of Celtic history because he played a critical role in raising the team's seventeenth championship banner, and no one can ever take that away from him. He helped restore Celtic pride and brought basketball back into the spotlight in Boston.

And no one should ever forget that.

Thank you, Doc.