Jason Kidd may not be seeing Lawrence Frank on a daily basis anymore, but at least he’s paying attention to his daily reports.
When Kidd announced Frank would be “reassigned” from his assistant coaching duties last Tuesday — adding he would no longer be present on the bench during games or at practices — he said Frank would be writing “daily reports” off of the team’s games.
Since then, various reports have leaked about how the relationship between the two — one that goes back to Kidd playing under Frank for several years as a Net — has deteriorated since Kidd openly and publicly pursued Frank to join his coaching staff this summer.
When asked directly about their relationship before Tuesday night’s victory over the Celtics, Kidd declined to get into it.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t read anything,” Kidd said of the various media reports on their relationship. “I’ve been focused on the game plan of playing Boston, and so unfortunately I can’t answer that question.
“I’ve been reading the reports [Frank is filing], and that’s as far as it’s going.”
For both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, facing the Celtics was the beginning of an emotional three days for them, as their old coach, Doc Rivers, and the Clippers are coming to town on Thursday.
But both Pierce and Garnett downplayed the significance of facing the Celtics, pointing out so many of the people they were there with have moved on to other places.
“Like I said before, I was already past that. My whole focus was just worried about getting back healthy and coming out and trying to help my team establish something at home,” said Pierce, who exchanged a laugh with old teammate Brandon Bass upon checking into the game for the first time midway through the first quarter.
“It happened to be a coincidence that the day I come back is against the Celtics. It’ll probably be a little more emotional when I go to Boston.”
Garnett gave former point guard Rajon Rondo a hug at one point during the game, and said though the Celtics will always be special to him, the absence of Rivers, Ray Allen and others made it a different team for him to face.
“Because Doc Rivers isn’t over there, it’s probably a little less emotional,” Garnett said. “You don’t see [general manager] Danny Ainge sitting on the side. You don’t see Paul Pierce over there, Ray Allen, Eddie House. I see Rajon Rondo over there, which makes it a little more emotional at times.
“Obviously I went to battle with [Bass] and a lot of those guys. Jeff Green, Courtney Lee, those are solid guys that I know on that team. Other than that, it was another night in the office. They’ve been playing well, they beat the crap out of the Knicks, and obviously we haven’t been playing well at home, so we wanted to come in and play well.
“But it will always be a special place in my heart when I face the green. Whether it’s different players or whoever is on the team, I’ll always have an affiliation with that.”
Speaking of Rivers, he became the latest person to offer up a theory as to why Garnett and Pierce have struggled so far this season with the Nets when he told Bleacher Report he chalks it up to the two veterans both playing under minutes restrictions in Brooklyn.
“He can score anywhere,” Rivers said of Pierce. “I think he was more uncomfortable with the short minutes that they were [playing him], like they did with Kevin. And that’s not Paul. Paul doesn’t work under those type of minutes — at least, in my opinion he doesn’t. He’s a guy that needs a rhythm to play. In Kevin’s case, on a 20-minute restriction, of course his numbers are going to be down.
“So I think at some point, he probably is going to have to play more minutes to improve, so he can get a better rhythm himself.”
Kidd declined to get into a back-and-forth with Rivers on the subject pregame.
“That’s Doc’s opinion,” Kidd said. “I respect that opinion, and some of the [minutes] restrictions are due to games being out of reach. But that’s Doc’s opinion, and I respect that.”
Rivers also said he has been in contact with either Garnett or Pierce, giving one of the ex-Celtics — he wouldn’t reveal which — a pep talk after the Nets’ early-season woes.
“One of the things I was telling one of those guys — which, I won’t say — is, ‘So what’s the big deal? You’re not playing well right now. You don’t get a trophy right now. You don’t get to play for the trophy right now. Just keep going,’ “ Rivers said.