Doc Rivers says criticism for blowing 3-1 leads is ‘unfair in some ways’

Doc Rivers is one of the winningest coaches in NBA history.

The current Milwaukee Bucks coach has 1,154 career regular-season wins and can tie former Lakers and Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson for seventh on the all-time list with a victory Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets.

He also led the Boston Celtics to an NBA title in 2008 and back to the finals in 2010 during a 26-year coaching career that also included seven seasons with the Clippers and stints with the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers.

But Rivers also might forever be known as the coach who has trouble holding onto 3-1 series leads in the playoffs.

Some fans don’t seem willing to forget that Rivers blew such advantages three times — with the Magic in 2003 (to the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs) and with the Clippers in 2015 (to the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference semifinals) and also with the Clippers in 2020 (to the Nuggets in the conference semifinals).

Rivers thinks the criticism he receives for those collapses is “unfair in some ways.”

“I don’t get enough credit for getting the three wins,” Rivers recently told Andscape. “I get credit for losing. I always say, ‘What if we had lost to Houston in six?’ No one cares. One of the things that I’m proud of is we’ve never been swept. All the coaches have been swept in the playoffs. My teams achieve. A lot of them overachieve and I’m very proud of that.”

The 2002-03 Magic team was an eighth seed that pushed the top-seeded Pistons to the brink of elimination. The 2014-15 Clippers finished the regular season at 56-26 and earned the third seed in the West. After defeating the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the first round, the Clippers went on to face the second-seeded Rockets, who also finished the regular season at 56-26.

Rivers calls that postseason series “the only one that got away.”

“But people don’t realize that Chris Paul was running on one leg and we were also the underdog in that series,” Rivers said. “When you think about it, Houston had home court, not us.”

The 2019-20 season was shortened because of the COVID-19 pandemic and finished in an isolated Orlando “bubble” during the late summer and early fall. The Clippers ended the regular season at 49-23 and earned the No. 2 seed in the West. Rivers said the team’s playoff letdown that year doesn’t bother him because he knows the players’ hearts weren’t in it.

“In the bubble, I had a group of guys that didn’t want to be there,” said Rivers, referring to comments made by former Clipper Lou Williams about the players’ mindset at the time. “I felt that. I knew that.”

Rivers added: “What bugs me about the bubble is I couldn’t get them to understand that we had a chance to win [a title]. That’s what bugs me. They wanted to go home more than they wanted to win. And I still don’t understand that. I’m too competitive. And I really thought that team had enough.”

Rivers acknowledged that all those playoff disappointments are “part of my legacy.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said.