DOC ON STATE OF THE CELTICS

Doc Rivers on WEEI: "As the trade deadline gets closer, we're hoping something opens up"

Celtics head coach Doc Rivers made his weekly radio appearance on WEEI a couple of days earlier than usual. Doc typically joins the "Dennis & Callahan" morning show on WEEI on Thursday mornings. Due to the All-Star break beginning around that time for the C's (their final game before the break is Wednesday night against the New Jersey Nets), Doc appeared this morning.

He had some interesting things to say, with the biggest thing that stood out was that they are looking at all angles of improving the team before the deadline and not just waiting for buyouts afterwards. He said the team is hoping something favorable opens up just before the deadline, but a lot of it is contingent upon the long term prognosis of Marquis Daniels. With that being said, he said that if Quis is out, a backup 2-3 is clearly their biggest need. Here are some other highlights of Doc's interview and go HERE for the full interview:

On holding Paul Piece out of the all-star game, allowing his foot to heal: "I don't think it's as serious as it's made out to be... It's not even close to as bad as we thought it could be."

On monitoring Pierce's minutes at the ASG (as well as the other Celtics): "Yeah we're gonna monitor all of their minutes... probably Rondo and Ray might play more, but Ray just loves playing... But I'm gonna play LeBron and Dwyane (Wade) about 47, 48 minutes in that area."

On Rondo guarding LeBron in the last game against Miami: "I told Rondo I didn't think we (the team) had the energy and they were going to need you (Rondo)... I told him to pressure the ball, now once he got it over half court, he was supposed to switch... He stayed on him and you could see what it was doing to their team... they spent so much time on that matchup, it took them out of their natual rhythm. But a steady diet of that over the long haul will cause you problems."

On Rondo going into the Heat huddle: "He was just trying to be an irritant, and he probably was." (Doc also reiterated that since it wasn't an official timeout, it was within the rules, and if the whole Miami team did it to him, they could have)

On Rondo learning from KG: "Kevin and Rondo don't really like anyone, on other teams. Rondo has sort of adopted Kevin's belief that you shouldn't like the opponent."

On Delonte West: "We're hoping for 10-15 minutes from Delonte (against New Jersey)."

On making a trade: "We're looking, we're not going to do anything that would take away from our team... we're looking pretty hard, obviously there's not a lot out there right now..."

On what the team's biggest need is: "Well depending on what happens with Marquis, I'd say that's our biggest need (replacing him)."

On Von Wafer: "It's up to him (on getting more playing time coming down the stretch)... he's just gotta keep doing what he's been doing and it'll happen."

On Shaq: "I'm not (concerned)... we thought it would heal quickly, it just has not, but he'll be ok."

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