LOS ANGELES — For anyone who has watched the Celtics over the past several years, seeing Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce playing in another uniform has taken a while to get used to.
So imagine how bizarre it looks to Doc Rivers, who spent the past six seasons coaching Garnett and the last nine coaching Pierce before leaving Boston to take over the Clippers this summer.
“I don’t know if I feel weird [coaching against them], but it is different,” Rivers said before the Clippers’ 110-103 triumph over the Nets Saturday night at Staples Center.
“I only had nine years with Paul,” he added with a smile. “When you have nine years with one player and now you are not with that player, that’s different. Just watching them is strange. But they had a hell of a career before I coached them and they’ll have a hell of a career after me. They are pretty fantastic people.”
Rivers didn’t get a chance to watch either of his former players up close Saturday, as Garnett (sprained right ankle) and Pierce (sprained left ankle) joined Deron Williams, Brook Lopez (sprained left ankles) and Andrei Kirilenko (back spasms) in missing the game because of injury.
The two future Hall of Famers missing the game led to the pregame discussion focusing quite a bit on the way things ended in Boston for all three of them. Rivers left the Celtics for the Clippers in May, and was followed out of town shortly thereafter by both Garnett and Pierce when they were sent to the Nets in the blockbuster draft-night trade.
Those two moves brought to a close a brilliant six-year run in Boston for the three of them, including the 2008 NBA title, losing the 2010 NBA Finals in seven games to the Lakers and the 2012 Eastern Conference finals in seven to the Heat.
“We [said goodbye] in our own way,” Rivers said. “It’s tough, because I don’t think any of us knew goodbye was coming. It’s not like at the end of the year I walked up to them and said, ‘Hey guys, I’m leaving’ or ‘You’re getting traded’ because we didn’t know.
“But we’ve talked. I don’t know if we’ve said goodbye, because we haven’t said goodbye. We don’t need to. We still talk a lot. I hope I never have to say that.”
The fact both Pierce and Garnett didn’t play meant Rivers also didn’t have to directly compete against them. It was something he said he wasn’t looking forward to, and compared it to the conflicted feelings he had while having to coach against his son, Austin, who is in his second year with New Orleans.
“It will be cool when we do that,” he said, “but those games are harder for me. I don’t like it.
“I don’t want to liken them to Austin, but it’s similar. I was taught that last year. I thought it’d be really cool to coach against your son. And then, in the middle of the game, I realized I didn’t enjoy that. I didn’t like that. That was no fun for me.
“When your son makes a basket, as a parent, you should be able to cheer. And he made one big bucket and I wanted to smack him. And that’s no fun. That’s not right, naturally.”
While Garnett and Pierce may not actually be Rivers’ sons, he did protect Garnett when asked to comment on his slow statistical start — including shooting 30 percent from the field — through his first few games with the Nets.
“I haven’t been noticing that he’s been struggling to be honest,” Rivers said. “I don’t think Kevin, in my opinion, came in here thinking he was going to score 20 points and all that.
“I think his value is far greater than that. If you are looking at numbers, you are looking at the wrong Garnett.”