Doc Rivers, the Celtics long-time coach, will return to Boston and TD Garden tonight for his first game against his old team in an NBA contest. The game will be live streamed on CSNN at 7:30 PM ET.

It will be Rivers' first visit since May 3, the last game of his stay with the Celtics.

"It will be very nice for me," Rivers told the Clippers website. "I put nine years in there, nine wonderful years. So that'll be really cool."

He led the Celtics to their 17th NBA championship in 2007-2008 when they compiled a 66-16 record, and to the seventh game of the 2010 NBA finals. He had a 416-305 regular-season record as coach of the Celtics and took them to the playoffs seven times.

Rivers was reluctant to be part of a rebuilding project with the Celtics, and on June 25 was traded to the Clippers for a 2015 first-round draft pick.

He has the Clippers in first place in the Pacific Division at 14-8 after a 94-83 win at Philadelphia on Monday, the fourth stop of a season high-tying seven-game trip.

His successor, Brad Stevens, has led the Celtics (10-13) to the top of a weak Atlantic Division, and they are coming off a 104-96 loss in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Rivers coached the Celtics to the championship in their first season after Garnett and Ray Allen joined Pierce. Allen left as a free agent for Miami before last season, and Garnett and Pierce were traded before this season to the Nets.

Instead, Boston has been led largely by the trio of Jeff Green (16.7 points per game), Jordan Crawford (14.0) and Avery Bradley (13.5), who are a combined 36 years younger than Pierce, Allen and Garnett.

Chris Paul is averaging 8.7 points on 18.8 percent shooting over his last three games against Boston, which has won four of five at home in the series.