Doc Rivers has a Hall of Fame résumé that stretches well beyond one title, but Saturday in Springfield, Mass., he pulled off one more Celtics feat that fit right into his legacy.
He reunited Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen as his presenters for his Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony, bringing Boston’s old Big Three back to the same stage years after their partnership had been split apart. Allen’s move to the Miami Heat in 2012 had strained his relationship with former Celtics teammates, especially Garnett, so getting all three together carried real weight for Rivers.
“I think when you win it, you should be together for life,” Rivers said. “Those three in particular have had their ups and downs. The fact that all three agreed to be together on this stage and kind of have dropped the BS is just absolutely amazing.”
He couldn’t resist adding one more line after engineering the reunion: the moment “may be my last good coaching feat.”
The three stars were the centerpiece of Boston’s 2008 championship run, a team built after the Celtics added Allen and Garnett in the summer of 2007 to join Pierce. Boston had gone 24-58 the season before, then turned around almost instantly. The Celtics went 66-16 in the regular season, then rolled through the Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons before beating the Los Angeles Lakers in six games to win the franchise’s first title since 1986.
Rivers made it clear to his stars that the whole thing depended on sacrifice. Pierce, Garnett and Allen all accepted reduced individual roles in order to chase the championship together.
That group helped change the league, too. Boston’s success pushed the NBA further toward star-heavy roster building, a trend that became even more obvious when LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in Miami two years later. Allen eventually became part of that Heat team in 2012, a decision that ended his five-year run in Boston and left some former teammates upset that he had not spoken to them first before joining one of their biggest Eastern Conference rivals.
The tension didn’t disappear overnight, but the ice started to crack. Allen and Garnett embraced during Garnett’s Celtics jersey retirement ceremony in 2022, a public sign that the bitterness had begun to ease.
Saturday’s stage gave them a fuller reunion.
“When you win a title, it’s like receiving a blood transfusion,” Rivers told Pierce, Garnett and Allen during his enshrinement speech. “You three guys are connected for the rest of your lives.
You really are. And I want you guys to hear that and understand that.”
Boston was the defining stop of Rivers’ coaching career. He spent nine seasons with the Celtics after arriving in 2004, and his first two teams there finished below .500. Once the roster came together, though, the results followed: seven playoff appearances, two trips to the NBA Finals and the 2008 championship before he left for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2013.
Rivers also gave credit to Danny Ainge, the former Celtics president of basketball operations who hired him and built the title team.
“Danny Ainge, man, we were just a great team, you and I,” Rivers said. “I say this to coaches and front office guys all the time: If you make that group a team, then you will have a successful team.”
His coaching numbers speak for themselves. Rivers finished with 1,194 regular-season victories, the sixth-highest total in NBA history, and coached 2,060 games. He won the 2000 NBA Coach of the Year Award with the Orlando Magic and was named one of the 15 greatest coaches in league history.
Before he became a coach, he also played 13 NBA seasons. Even with all that on the résumé, the Celtics title remains the achievement most closely tied to his name.
That was part of what made Saturday feel right. Pierce, Garnett and Allen have each become Hall of Famers themselves, and Rivers joined them in the Class of 2026, which also included Mike D’Antoni, Mark Few, Amar’e Stoudemire, Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, Chamique Holdsclaw, Joey Crawford and the 1996 United States women’s Olympic team.
Rivers grew emotional as he spoke about his family, his parents and the people who helped him along the way. But one of the night’s most memorable scenes belonged to the Celtics group he once guided to a championship.
The coach who got three stars to buy into one shared mission in 2007 brought them back together again in 2026. For Rivers, that might have been the cleanest ending possible.
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