MIAMI–The Philadelphia 76ers are getting set to take on the Miami Heat on Monday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and there are a lot of links between these two teams.
The obvious one is Jimmy Butler who played for the Sixers in the 2018-19 season before leading for the Heat in free agency, but Doc Rivers has a lot of history with the Heat during his coaching career. He faced Miami in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 playoffs and he also played for Heat president Pat Riley during his playing career with the New York Knicks.
Rivers, named a top 15 coach of all time earlier in the season, actually credits the legendary Riley for influencing him to get into coaching.
“I’ve been a lucky coach,” said Rivers at shootaround on Monday morning in Miami. “I guess I would say I’m a lucky player because I played for Mike Fratello who’s a defensive genius and I followed that up with Larry Brown, I followed that up with Pat Riley, and then I go to San Antonio. Pop (Gregg Popovich) is in the front office and that’s where our relationship started so I’ve been around some pretty good guys, but Riley clearly had the biggest impact. It’s not even close.”
After his playing career, Rivers was actually a broadcaster and Riley pestered him every day to get into coaching.
“I had no thoughts of coaching until I played for Pat Riley and the way he did it,” Rivers added. “I thought ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool’. He was the one who when I did TV for three years, every day he would call me or challenge me. When are you gonna get in the fray? He would belittle me! Literally, because I did the Miami-New York series, and every day, he got me. I thought he was wrong, he ended up being right.”
Rivers has done an excellent job leading the team in the 2021-22 season amid the Ben Simmons saga and keeping the team focused and competitive through that time. His time with Riley helped him to get everything going in terms of being a leader of this team.
“He inspired me, man,” he finished. “Just his speeches, his belief, and conditioning, I was always in pretty good shape anyways so he has you believing that you’re different than everybody else in the league and back then, he had a foul every possession in the first five minutes rule because they’ll stop calling them. You can’t do that anymore…It’s his spirit and the way he approaches the job that sets him apart.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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