The new Celtics’ coach is hoping to reinstill pride in his players.

WALTHAM, Mass. – Boston coach Doc Rivers was golfing with Bob Cousy and K.C. Jones when the two Celtics Hall of Famers started talking about Bill Russell. In Chicago, a man walked up to Rivers and asked, “are you going to get us back” to the NBA’s elite?

That will take time for a young team and its new coach. But it didn’t take long for Rivers to find out just how important the team’s tradition remains 18 years after its last championship.

“When I first took it, people asked why are you taking that job?” Rivers says of the team that has won just three playoff series in 12 years. “It’s corny, but this tradition here, as big as I thought it was, it’s bigger once you get in the door.”

He hopes his players feel it..

Rivers witnessed the waning days of the Celtics dynasty as a young guard with Atlanta. They won a title in 1984, when he was a rookie, and again two years later. Rivers played 13 NBA seasons but reached the conference finals just twice and never won a championship.

In his last coaching job, with Orlando, there was little tradition on a team that played its first season in 1989-90, four years after Boston won its 16th and most recent title.

When Rivers thought about bringing back some former Magic players, such as Shaquille O’Neal, to help his players learn about tradition, he couldn’t because O’Neal was still playing.

The Celtics have many more options. Starting with team president Red Auerbach, still involved at age 87, they have 29 members of the Hall of Fame. Rivers wants them to be around the team as much as possible, even on the road.

“The more the merrier, just coming around and saying “hi.’ It would be nice,” Rivers said. “If you’re scared of the tradition, then I don’t think this is the right place for you.”

His players, though, probably don’t know much about it. Five of them weren’t even 5 years old when Boston won its last title. The Celtics finished 10 games under .500 last season and were swept by Indiana in the first playoff round.

And the tradition doesn’t attract free agents like it used to.

“The days when guys get here it has some value,” said executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge, who feels that stressing the tradition could add some wins.

“I still sense that Celtic uniform has some meaning and it kind of kept the ship afloat a little bit (in recent years) if maybe in another organization it could have been a lot worse.”

It was pretty bad last season when Ainge shook up the team by trading Antoine Walker, Tony Delk, Eric Williams and Tony Battie and went through two coaches, Jim O’Brien and John Carroll.

But, in his first full season as basketball boss, Ainge was convinced the potential of the team was limited and it needed to get younger and faster.

The makeover started when a group headed by Wyc Grousbeck bought the team on Dec. 31, 2002. He hired Ainge on May 9, 2003. Then Ainge hired Rivers, a respected young coach who led Orlando through four-plus seasons, last April 29.

“The stability of our franchise right now is in management and in the coaches,” Ainge said. “We have accumulated … pieces of the puzzle to bargain with, to keep, to develop, and we’ve accumulated talent.”

But this team is hardly a throwback to those Celtics squads of team-oriented, disciplined veterans who built the tradition. They drafted two high-schoolers in the first round – forwards Kendrick Perkins last year and Al Jefferson this year – and neither may contribute much this season.

They traded with the Los Angeles Lakers for 36-year-old point guard Gary Payton. And last season, they got 25-year-old Ricky Davis from Cleveland, a talented player who sometimes prefers flashy dunks to timely passes although he’s been a regular participant for seven weeks at unofficial practices.

“We know that Ricky has not played up to his abilities. We know that Ricky has had issues with coaches,” Ainge said. “Ricky is a very talented player. Someday, hopefully sooner than later, Ricky’s going to get it and play to win the game, and I believe that he is just waiting for a coach that he can embrace that embraces his game.”

Ainge hopes Rivers is that coach.

“Ricky has a target, and he’s earned it,” Rivers said. “It’s his job to get it off of him. It’s not my job.”

The stable core of the team revolves around center Mark Blount, who appeared ready to leave as a free agent after last season, and Paul Pierce, who was upset when Walker was traded shortly before the beginning of last season.

“Once (Blount) decided to come back it has been a great motivation for him,” Ainge said. “He’s worked harder than he’s ever worked before.”

And Pierce, the senior Celtic entering his seventh season, is driven to succeed.

“Paul is a great leader on our team right now,” Ainge said. “He’s here doing the conditioning with the rookies, with the non-roster players. He’s doing all the dirty work with all the guys. To me that’s great leadership.”

Rivers even was surprised at how much Pierce knew about the team’s tradition and about the passion of Boston fans.

“Watching people go to work with suits on and Red Sox hats? It’s the silliest looking thing I’ve ever seen but it’s an amazing thing and I know there’s a million Celtics fans. Some still come and some don’t but I know if we get it right they’ll come.”

Besides, the 42-year-old Rivers had a personal interest in bringing the builders of the tradition back.

“I’ve never met John Havlicek,” he said. “I want to meet him.”