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The Boston Celtics in the late 2000's were iconic and both Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers had a lot to do with it. Garnett recently came to the Unleashed podcast as a guest and shared an interesting story about Doc Rivers.
Back in the 2009-10 season, the Boston Celtics followed a season where they failed to make it back to the Finals. Due to the injury that Garnett suffered, the team was without their defensive anchor and lost to Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic in seven games. The Celtics started their revenge season struggling and needed a boost from their leaders. Doc Rivers, who was the head coach at the time, used an unusual tactic to encourage the team.
Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett shared the infamous "$100 story" in detail as a guest on the Unleashed podcast.
"We play the Lakers in LA and Doc [Rivers] comes in, he says, 'I want everybody to give me $100! God d**nit, put out $100. Everybody!'" Garnett said.
"He gets it. So we see it, [he] takes a chair, takes the ceiling and removes the ceiling... Puts the money and he puts the ceiling back, comes down, he gets out the chair. 'We coming back to get that money.'"
"And we beat the Lakers, we left. And slowly but surely, we started getting better and better. Then playoffs come and open up, we getting better. And better and then Conference Finals, better and better. Next thing you know we're in the Finals! The first day we have shootaround, we get back... and he pulled the money and it had cobwebs."
It was effective and the tactic encouraged the players of the team to perform at a high level. The Celtics at the time were a huge threat in the East and had a ton of iconic games. However, they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games. The group weren't able to win another NBA title again, but they stayed together for quite some time.
Ty Lue used the "Doc Rivers money tactic" on the Cleveland Cavaliers once
The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers were a huge part of NBA history for doing the impossible. At the time, it was the Cavs' second year in a row in making it to the Finals. They had just previously lost to the Golden State Warriors after a hard-fought series in 2015.
Before the 2015-16 season, the Cavs had just hired Ty Lue as their new head coach. As a rookie head coach, he was able to perform his duties well and was able to take the team back to the Finals. Lue led the Cavs to a rematch against the Warriors, who had just won 73 games that season.
In the Finals, the team went down 3-1 and the odds were against them. Lue took the opportunity to encourage the whole team that they'll win. In an article written by Ananth Pandian of CBS Sports, he said that Lue used the money tactic that Doc Rivers had used with the Celtics. (via CBSSports.com)
Unlike the outcome that the Celtics had, the Cavaliers won the championship that year. They ended a 52-year title drought, all thanks to Doc Rivers and his motivational skills.
