Celtics bonding in Newport
The defending NBA champion Boston Celtics set up camp in Newport, R. I., on Tuesday, heading about 90 miles south of Boston to get away from the bustle and allow the team to bond. They’ll work out for seven days at Salve Regina University, right down the street from a row of former summer “cottages” like the Breakers, the Vanderbilt Family’s 70-room Italian Renaissancestyle mansion.
“I don’t know anybody who lives in a house that big,” Ray Allen said. “Some of them might think they do.”
The Celtics trained in Rome last year, an experience that the players said helped them bond after an offseason overhaul that introduced a new Big Three and put them on the path to the NBA title. Rivers enjoyed it so much that he encouraged General Manager Danny Ainge to find someplace this year, too.
Ainge set the team up in Newport, a town more accustomed to the swishing of tennis rackets, polo mallets and the spinnakers of America’s Cup yachts. Forward Paul Pierce had never been before, and he said he didn’t plan to partake in the scene this time, either.
“I’m not worried about the mansions. I’m here for training camp,” he said. “It’s got a regulation court and 10- foot rims. That’s all I need.”
The team said center Kendrick Perkins will be kept out of scrimmages during camp because of offseason surgery on his left shoulder.
