A little over a month after being fired as head coach by the Orlando Magic, Doc Rivers has landed on his fett and will announce his first game with Al Michaels today on ABC as the Houston Rockets face-off with the Los Angeles Lakers.

However, despite landing on his feet, he still misses coaching.

"I absolutely miss the intensity. That will never change. I love coaching and I like the passion of it," Rivers said Tuesday upon completing a round of golf with his father and teenage son. "I took the losses very, very hard and that's probably the only thing that's made me feel better is not having to go through the losses emotionally. But it's like Bill Parcells said, 'Some coaches handle it well and some don't. It just eats away at them.' I think I'm a little bit in that same category."

In Rivers' eyes though, he felt this team was built to fail.

"I thought this year was pretty easy to figure it out," Rivers said. "Bottom line was Tracy (McGrady) started slowly and didn't play well, Gordan (Giricek) and Pat (Garrity) were out and we made changes with eight new guys. That's easy to figure out. What I still think of is where it went so wrong that they had to make a decision so quickly? If I could see all of that stuff, I figured they could, too."

Rivers also ranted about some of GM John Gabriel's personal moves, starting with allowing Ben Wallace to walk in 2000 (note: Magic couldn't sign Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady without doing so).

"I look at it this way: I had a nice run, but what could I have done differently? Basically a lot of it comes down to fighting harder for personnel decisions," said Rivers, who was 171-168 in four-plus seasons in Orlando. "I thought the start of it was allowing Ben (Wallace) to go. I fought hard, but if I had it to do again I would have put my foot down and not let that happen.

"I really don't (want more control in his next job). I think if the coach and general manager can work together, then you have a chance to be successful for a long time. But when you don't see eye to eye on personnel decisions on talent, things are going to happen like they did in Orlando. I've told people a million times that I've never had anything personal with Gabe. Where we had disagreements were on personnel decisions."

Rivers hopes to coach again possibily as soon as next season.