Bah Humbug: Doc Rivers Once Hated the Boston Celtics' Christmas Day Sneakers

In 2008 the Celtics' Christmas Day sneakers annoyed the team's former coach.

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Complex Original

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The Boston Celtics under Doc Rivers' reign did some magical things: mainly winning an NBA championship. But there was one thing that the team did that Rivers wasn't a fan of: wearing Christmas-themed sneaker. As reported by NESN, it was revealed that Rivers once went on a halftime tirade about the team's sneakers in 2008 after playing poorly against their rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers.

"I went off at halftime," Rivers says. "I didn’t like it. I mean I’m watching us play and looking at green shoes, red shoes, and I’m getting grumpier by the minute on Christmas Day. So I unloaded at halftime. It made me feel good."

Paul Pierce, who is now a member of the Los Angeles Clippers and currently coached by Doc Rivers, said, "Yeah, I remember Doc talked about how we had all these colorful shoes on. We couldn’t focus on the game."

The Celtics ended up losing to the Lakers and snapped their 19-game winning streak. The sneakers in question included a "Sugar Ray" Air Jordan 2.5 worn by Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo's Nike Blue Chip Low PEs.

In this case, saying, "It's gotta be the shoes," isn't necessarily a good thing.