LOS ANGELES (AP) -Rajon Rondo might have had a very different NBA career if he had ended up on a team other than Boston Celtics coming out of Kentucky.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers credits Rondo’s development to being around veterans Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.
“Most young guys come in the league, they don’t even know what a routine is,” Rivers said Tuesday night before Game 6 of the NBA finals. “Where if you ask a veteran what he does on game day, he can probably tell you to the second every step that day until the game starts what he’s going to do.”
Now in his fourth season with the Celtics, Rondo had a triple double in their Game 2 win against the Lakers, and he has the second-most in team history with five, trailing Larry Bird who had 10.
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PHIL WANTS TEAM PLAY: Phil Jackson knows how much offense the Los Angeles Lakers generate off Kobe Bryant. What he wants is the rest of his team to step up.
offensive end.”
Bryant took twice as many shots through the first five games of the finals as the next highest player on the team, Pau Gasol.
“We looked for him too often, he didn’t get going, and there was a need for the team to give him the basketball,” Jackson said about the Lakers’ Game 5 loss. “We talked about that in our pregame today.”
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GOING CAMPING: Before going on to star in the NBA finals, Kobe Bryant and Rajon Rondo took part in the Top 100 camp.
Eight players in this series are alumni of the National Basketball Players Association’s camp, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the University of Virginia.
In its 17th year, the camp gathers some of the top high school juniors and sophomores in the country. There are also current and former NBA players who will take part in the camp’s mentoring and development program.
Boston’s Glen Davis and Shelden Williams also were campers, as were the Lakers’ Lamar Odom, Josh Powell, Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton.
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