Doc Rivers (AP)

On the Kris Humphries scuffle and ensuing suspension: “Rondo understands that we need him. I called it like I saw it … and Rondo almost said the same thing: He said, ‘Coach, I didn’t go in there to have a fight. I went in there to push him off Kevin [Garnett] and the next thing you know he grabs my arm, and then I pushed back and it escalated.’ He said, ‘I never intended to fight, that’s not what I did. I was just trying to push him off Kevin.’”

On whether Rondo really went to Mexico: “I have no idea. I really don’t. I don’t ever check. He’s a grown man, and he wasn’t in our locker room. I did say, ‘Go where you want, do what you want, just keep working out and watching us play.’ And he did those things.

“It may not have been a bad time, but it was an expensive time.”

On the point guard’s public vs. private persona: “Rondo with his teammates never shuts up. He’s loud, they laugh, they argue all the time — sports arguments are what you’d call it, debates where they are laughing — so he has a very good personality, and then he has the personality that you see as well. He has both of those.”