Dobbins, Bucknor Win NBA Title with Celtics

RICHMOND, Va. — Greater than 20 years after they final shared the courtroom within the Robins Heart, a pair of Spiders reached the highest of the basketball mountain Monday night, serving to the Boston Celtics to their report 18th NBA championship. Tony Dobbins, ’04, and Jermaine Bucknor, ’06, are each members of the Celtics teaching workers, with Dobbins serving as an assistant coach and Bucknor a member of the group’s participant enhancement workers. The 2 have reunited in Boston a technology after they thrilled Spider followers as All-Convention gamers at Richmond.

Dobbins broke into the NBA as a member of the Celtics video workers and was promoted to assistant coach in 2020. As a Spider, Dobbins earned All-District, All-State, and All-Convention honors and served as a group captain as a senior in 2003-04. Probably the greatest defenders in program historical past, he stays the one Spider to be named a convention defensive participant of the yr twice. He can be ceaselessly remembered by Spider followers for hitting the game-winning shot simply earlier than the buzzer on the highway vs Twelfth-ranked Kansas on Jan. 22, 2004, a win that helped the Spiders earn an at-large berth to the NCAA Event that season. 

Bucknor, a sophomore, was the sixth man on the 2003-04 Spiders. He moved right into a full-time beginning function in his closing two seasons, serving as group captain and incomes Second Workforce All-Atlantic 10 honors in 2005-06. He got here to Boston following a embellished worldwide enjoying and training profession, with stints in Germany, France, Poland, Argentina, Belgium, and his native Canada. Previous to the Celtics, Bucknor was serving as head coach of Gladiators Trier, an expert group in Germany’s second division. 

Dobbins and Bucknor are the fourth and fifth Spiders to win an NBA championship lately. They be a part of Kenny Atkinson, R’90, an assistant coach on the 2021-22 Golden State Warriors, Dan Geriot ’11, a video coordinator on the 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers, and Kevin Eastman, R’77, an assistant coach on the 2007-08 Celtics.