LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 30, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

Lakers 103, Clippers 101

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Doc.

Q. What are your overall thoughts from tonight's game?

DOC RIVERS: You know, we were shorthanded and we made too many mistakes. It's a good lesson for the team. You can't make as many mistakes as we made in one game and be shorthanded.

When you don't have guys, you have to execute. We didn't execute many plays tonight offensively. We had 20 turnovers. We gave up offensive rebounds. We lost guys in coverage defensively. So in that way, it was disappointing.

The positives are that we had every opportunity to still win the game. That would have been a sweet win for us with what our guys have gone through.

Q. Having a couple guys who didn't play in scrimmage games at all, the 20 turnovers, is that something you can expect coming into the first game in the bubble?

DOC RIVERS: No, I don't ever want 20 turnovers. When guys like Sham hadn't played a lot, Zub did his best tonight, JaMychal. We had a lot of guys that came in late.

The turnovers that bothered me were more the sloppy execution. Sometimes it's good defense when that happens. We can't have self-inflicted wounds. I thought we had too many of them all night.

Q. How is this game against the Lakers compared to the other three with the environment of being in the bubble? How much would you like to see these guys down the road in the Playoffs again?

DOC RIVERS: I want to see anybody. I don't need to see the Lakers. I'm fine with that. We just want to keep seeing different teams as the Playoffs happen.

The environment was great. I thought the NBA did as much as they could with crowd noise and all that. But at the end of the day it was a competition. You can feel that out on the floor.

Q. Paul George, your thoughts on his game offensively, what he was doing from the three-point range?

DOC RIVERS: We drew up that play two-for-one. Got a three out of him. It was just great shooting. He had a ton of them just on ISOs. He was great.

I thought the turnovers hurt us a little bit, but overall I loved the way PG played.

Q. Talk about the environment, the crowd noise, what the NBA did with the videos in the background. Can you notice that at all, the virtual fans?

DOC RIVERS: You just heard white noise. For a coach, it just felt normal. I thought they did a great job. You could hear the music playing. Guys, I got to tell you, it was a competition out there. We all would rather have the crowd there. My guess is there was a big crowd watching.

I think what happened today was just phenomenal for the NBA. Like, we need this. It's crazy how many texts I got today just saying thank you. I've never had a text before a game that said thank you for playing. I had tons of them.

So just really happy and proud of our league and all the things they're doing. It was great.

On that note I want to make one more comment that I noticed. Can I ask them questions, the media? How long do you think the national anthem lasted? Two minutes?

So the hardest thing that happened to me in the game today was kneeling for two minutes. Like, my knee hurt. In the middle of it I'm thinking, in two minutes my knee is hurting, yet there was a guy that had his knee on someone's neck for eight minutes. Think about that.

The national anthem took two minutes. There were guys that needed towels and things to get under their knees. Yet someone kneeled on another human being's neck for eight minutes. That's nuts when you think about it.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.