November 4, 2007
The relative serenity of yesterday's Celtics practice was broken when Glen Davis took exception to getting his nose bloodied by Leon Powe. By NBA standards, it was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, but ``Big Baby'' made his displeasure known.
The team had finished its main session and players had broken off into groups for extra drills. Davis and Powe were battling when the former began shouting, ``That's two times. You hit me two (expletive) times.''
The players never went after each other, and teammates did step between them before things had a chance to escalate. Paul Pierce took Davis aside and had a talk with him. To give you an idea of how unfazed Doc Rivers was by the event, he never even left his position at the opposite end of the court, where he was speaking with the media.
``All right,'' he said as things broke out. ``This is good. It's about time. . . . You notice I don't get involved. They'll work it out.''
At one point, it appeared Powe was tired of listening to Davis yell and said he'd fight the rookie if that's what he wanted.
``See, when you hear that, that means they don't want to fight,'' Rivers said with a laugh.
When the size of the potential combatants was noted, Rivers replied, ``You don't want to get held by Big Baby. Then you're in trouble. But I wouldn't fight Leon.
``You know what this is over? It's the frustration of the guys that didn't play (much Friday night).''
Director of basketball operations Danny Ainge was seated nearby when things broke out. ``I would classify that as good, fun competition,'' he said later. ``It's not uncommon. I mean, I don't know how many times it happens, but maybe 10 or 15 or 20 times a year. They were competing, and one guy got a bloody nose in incidental contact and wasn't too happy about it. It happens. ``They're trying to get ready. Those guys hadn't played a ton of minutes and they're trying to stay fresh.''
As the Celts prepared to fly to Toronto for today's game, Ainge laughed at the prospect of body slams at 30,000 feet.
``No, none of that,'' he said. ``They're fine already. It's over.''
Rivers concurred that such things have taken place in practice before, though it's usually when the session is still closed to the media.
``It happens a lot,'' Rivers said. ``I don't ever think it's a big deal. Guys square off a lot in practice. It's really no big deal. It's a family. A family has fights - hopefully not fistfights - and they get over it. Sometimes it takes a day. With the young guys it might take two days. By the end of the day, by the end of the time, they're back out to dinner with each other. The other players do a good job of watching over it. They know when it's gone too far. So it happens, and half the time, (they) don't really want to do anything except for talk. Sometimes they actually do fight. It happens.''
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