Celtics guard Rajon Rondo played a fantastic game last night getting a triple-double in the Celtics 118-115 victory. Coach Doc Rivers had some interesting postgame comments about Rondo thinking too much before the game.
The way Rivers explained it, Rondo was in his ear before the game asking question after question about every conceivable facet of the game, so many questions -- "they were all great questions" -- that Rivers stopped himself in his tracks and summoned Rondo back after answering the last one, believing he had just done his point guard a disservice.
Wait a minute, Rivers said to himself, I'm complicating things here when I needn't be.
Yes, Rondo's questions were all appropriate ones coming from a dedicated student of the game (Rivers listed some examples: "What can I do defensively? Offensively? Am I dribbling too much? Am I not getting the ball to Paul [Pierce]? Are we not posting enough?"), but there comes a point when the brain is doing too much work and the body not enough, and Rivers wanted to make sure Rondo's yin and yang were in balance.
"He was asking all these questions about what he needed to do, and I told him a bunch of stuff. And then when he left, I got to thinking: 'That's too many questions,'" Rivers recounted.
"And so when I walked back in the locker room I said to him, 'Look, you have the keys to the team, just go out and play. And stop asking me questions,' and I thought the first seven minutes of that ballgame were the best seven minutes I had ever seen him play."
