LOS ANGELES — Doc Rivers walked into the hotel lobby at Shutters wearing a blue V-neck sweater from Bel-Air Country Club. He decided on a small table on the deck, which sits just above the serene Santa Monica sand, a short walk north from the “Holy crap, Martha, did you see that?” of Venice Beach.

On a quiet Sunday evening, Rivers — resident of Beverly Hills, coach of the Los Angeles Clippers — is content by the Pacific.

“Because it’s warm and there’s an ocean, I try to see it as often as I can,” he said. “I know it sounds nuts, but I do. I’ll have breakfast at the beach on my way to practice. There’s no reason to go that way. I just think it’s important, so I do it.”

It was less than three years ago that this newly baptized Angeleno, having signed a five-year contract extension with the Celtics, proclaimed his undying loyalty to Boston. Most people believed him, but Kris Rivers wasn’t buying it.

“My wife would tell me all the time,” said Rivers. “She’d say, ‘You love it there and I get that, but you know who you are. You need something.’”

That it would be the Clippers isn’t something he could have foreseen. But as he sipped on a glass of pinot noir Sunday, Rivers admitted last summer wasn’t the first time he’d made a move for the door in Boston.

“I left three times,” he said. “I really did. The year we won it, I was done after the year. I was going through my dad thing (his father’s passing), and I was just going to go home and do nothing. In 2010, I was definitely gone. After that last game, I almost said it. I was very close to saying it in the press conference after we lost to the Lakers. I was emotional and I was just going to leave.

“After the Miami loss (in 2011) when I said, ‘I am a Celtic,’ that’s when I got defiant about not leaving. It’s amazing how you go up and down. But I felt like I couldn’t leave then. It wasn’t the right time. We had Paul (Pierce), Kevin (Garnett) and, at the time, Ray (Allen), and I just thought it would be bad form. I couldn’t do it to them.”

Looking back on a trail of mixed messages and emotions, Rivers shrugged.

“It’s what you believe at that moment,” he said.

Not missing winter

While he has easily warmed to the weather out here, there are other aspects of LA life that the 52-year-old Rivers doesn’t believe he’ll ever fully abide.

“Just the lifestyle is a big difference,” he said. “In Boston, I was a walker. I was in the middle of a city, and it was awesome. I just walked. I would go into Abe and Louie’s or Neptune Oyster and just go sit at the bar. You get to know the waiters and you get to know the people.

“LA is not like that. This is not a walking city. Here you just basically go out with your friends, and I have a lot of friends here from when I played for the Clippers. In Boston, I had a ton of friends, but I also met a ton of friends, because, to me, it was that type of city.”

This past weekend as Boston was hit with more than a foot of snow, Rivers smiled a dodged-that-bullet smile. He didn’t need to turn on The Weather Channel to see the reports.

“All my buddies sent pictures,” he said. “It’s hilarious. I’ve got a picture of guys shoveling. I got a picture of one of my buddies scraping the ice off his windshield. I sent a picture back of me standing on a balcony wearing a T-shirt. It’s a running joke between me and my buddies.

“That part I don’t miss,” Rivers, a child of Chicago, said of the cold. “I don’t miss the struggles of winter. Some people enjoy that. My mom thinks that’s good. I’ve never agreed with her on that part.”

Told that making it through a harsh winter provides a feeling of accomplishment for some, Rivers said, “I guess people here don’t earn their summers. What gets me is they go to Vail to find winter. It’s funny. They go to Big Bear. I’m like, people move out here to get away from that weather and then you go away to find it?”

New challenges

Some things can be difficult to find. For example, if Danny Ainge wants to work on his short game and needs his weighted wedge, he should look in the Clippers’ practice facility in Playa Vista, just over the hill from Loyola Marymount. It’s leaning against a wall in the corner of Rivers’ upstairs office, across the room from a picture of the coach and Red Auerbach holding a ball that commemorates Doc’s first win as Celtics coach, 107-73 over the Knicks.

Rivers is trying to find similar magic here. It was a long way from that Nov. 6, 2004, victory to the 2008 championship, and it is more than just the 2,600-odd miles from the glory group in Boston to the crew of Clippers finishing Monday’s workout one floor down out Rivers’ window. Even when Chris Paul (separated shoulder) and J.J. Redick (fractured hand) return to the floor with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, there is much to be done.

“It’s so different,” said Rivers. “The team I had in Boston with Paul, Kevin and Ray, they were veterans. They knew already. The challenge here is you’ve got to show them almost everything. Blake can play, and so can Chris. But their journey now is how soon are they ready to win. They’re both very competitive, but it’s a completely different journey — which takes me on a different journey, which is good. It’s a whole different challenge. It is fun in some ways, because every time something works or you can see your team buying into something, it just feels so good.

“The other night, we were in a huddle and Jamal Crawford said, ‘Hey, let’s get it in. Defense on three.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what did you just say? Defense?’ Everybody started laughing.”

If Rivers were simply the coach, dealing with the absences of Paul and Redick would be difficult enough. But in that he is also the senior vice president of basketball operations, he is in charge of deciding who replaces them on the active roster. On Monday, he signed Darius Morris to a 10-day contract. That night, Morris played eight minutes in a win over Orlando.

“It’s more responsibility,” Rivers said of the extra job. “I’m learning a lot that I didn’t know. I’m hands-on to the point where I make the decisions. Having said that, I’m letting the guys do their work — (basketball ops VP) Gary Sacks and that whole group. I’m learning that part of the business. I didn’t know it before. I’d never done it, so you’re learning that whole game. It’s more work, but it’s fun.”

‘Always a Celtic’

To get to this exhausting fun, Doc Rivers had to wrestle with his inherent wanderlust and his conscience. Back on the deck at Shutters, he insisted that he’s moved on from last summer’s Celtics divorce, but he hasn’t completely reconciled the departure.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable with it, honestly,” he said. “I don’t think you can get comfortable with it. Danny and I did get together on it at the end, but I just thought after a while it got to the point of no return.

“It was just hard for me. I’m not sure anyone can understand. I fell in love with where I was at, but after the season I realized I just didn’t want to get into the whole rebuilding thing. I didn’t have it in me. Once I came to that conclusion, now I’m a mess. Do I stay and do it anyway? I thought about it and decided I just couldn’t.

“I’ve never had that type of feeling for a place. I was in Atlanta eight years and it was great. Orlando is nice and playing for the Knicks was nice, but nothing like Boston. And I don’t think I can ever get that again, no matter what I do. That’s just hard.”

Rivers was reminded of that on the night of Dec. 11 when he returned to the Garden with the Clippers and received a long and loud ovation. Recalling it Sunday, his eyes grew a bit moist.

“This will sound strange, but what I loved about losing in my first three years is the people (expletive) cared,” he said. “When I’d be walking, a lady would come up to me and say, ‘You’ve got to play Al Jefferson more,’ or, ‘Doc, Kendrick Perkins needs to run the floor.’ I’m talking about ladies and older guys. I was walking down the street and a guy sitting next to his store says, ‘You going to play (Rajon) Rondo tomorrow?’ It was amazing, and I loved it. I’d stop sometimes and say, ‘What do you think?’ It was great.

“It wasn’t because they were trying to be (expletives); they actually cared about their team. It’s the same thing with the Red Sox. I’d sit on my balcony and watch people walk to work in a suit and tie and a Red Sox hat. In Boston, it’s not what’s in vogue, it’s for real.”

Rivers knows he will never have the complete experience because he chose not to stay. He couldn’t take the chill of the city’s latest basketball winter. But he is holding his slice of the Boston Experience tight to his Bel-Air sweater-covered chest.

“I don’t give a (expletive) what I do the rest of my life, I’m always going to be a Celtic,” he said. “It’ll never go away. I don’t give a (expletive) what I do. I think even if I win 10 championships here, it’s different when you win with the Celtics. There are only a few organizations in sports that have that history and have that following, and I was with one for nine years.”

As if on cue, Rivers’ point was brought the long way home when a father and son from Sudbury sitting in the restaurant above noticed him and sent the waiter by with the offer of a second round of drinks. Another pinot noir? What the hell.

Later, after finding the beverage benefactors and thanking them, Doc Rivers headed back out into the warm evening.

“I don’t know how you beat that,” he said.

He only knows he had to try.