LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 27, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

Kings - 106, Clippers - 102

Q. Doc, just before getting into the game stuff, I want to get your thoughts on Lou Williams was issued a 10-day quarantine period. Did you think that was fair, all things considered?

DOC RIVERS: I don't know if it's fair or not. I just know intent. Lou obviously made a mistake, but it wasn't intended to make a mistake, you know. So we get over things pretty quickly here. We know why we're here. Lou knows why we're here, so we move on. But I didn't look at it as a suspension or anything like that. I just looked at it as they know he was in the public, so that's the protocol. That's about it.

Q. With today's news with Marlins situation, what concerns does that raise about whether or not this will work?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I'm not comparing it to -- I mean, they're traveling to get to the stadium, so I don't think it compares. I think what we're doing and what they're doing are so different.

You know, I like what we're doing. I think what we're doing, the league has -- they've been phenomenal in everything. This is not the way you want to live, in one place, right, yet they're doing their best to make it an enjoyable experience. We have some restaurants open, we golf, we boat, we fish, go to movies. But it's different. And so you've got to give the league a lot of credit. Again, we don't know if this is going to work or not, but I think the league has given us every chance for this to work. If we do it right, we have a shot at it.

Q. Do you expect that you'll have Sham and Pat Bev on Thursday, and what did you think of Zub at out there today?

DOC RIVERS: Zub was great. It just tells you, like all through COVID, Zub was one of the guys that worked out on all our Zoom workouts, and he looked great. Obviously we were laughing because I don't care how much you work out, a basketball game, NBA basketball game is different. And so you get winded. But I thought he did what Zub does. He clogged up the paint, he rolled for us. He did a lot of good things.

As far as Sham, yeah, I think he'll be ready for Thursday, and Pat is probably a maybe.

Q. You guys increased your three-point rate by almost double during the scrimmage play. Do you read into that at all? Is that something you guys have focused on more, or is that kind of how the games played out and you guys didn't have your full roster?

DOC RIVERS: A little bit of both. I thought we took too many contested twos. We don't find the two-point shot. We're not one of those teams because we have a dearth of two-point shooters in Lou, Paul George and Kawhi. But if teams are going to trap us and if teams are going to come, we've got great shooting, so we've got to take advantage of that more. We just don't want contested twos, and I think our guys did a better job of that. I think we had, what, 50 threes tonight? I think that's pretty impressive.

Q. With the lineup just kind of not having the full complement of your roster and the intensity kind of up and down throughout these three scrimmages, what do you take away from these three competitions such as they were?

DOC RIVERS: I don't know, I think when we move the ball, I think we can be pretty efficient offensively. I think you saw that with the first unit. I thought the first unit set the tone defensively. Washington didn't score a lot, but we played awful good defense in our last game, and I thought our guys came out with a great defensive effort, especially in that first quarter, so those are the things we see. We see the different match-ups, the things we can do on the floor, as well. We take a lot out of this.

Q. Earlier you referenced that Harvard study about the physical contact correlating to winning. Through only scrimmages Joakim Noah seems to be elite in that area. Is that what you look for from him, one of the things you look for?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, he's a team builder. He's one of those guys. He's got a great way about himself. The guys love him. He plays with great energy, and he's always like pepping guys up, touching guys and grabbing guys and talking to guys. I think he'll be absolutely wonderful for Zub just to watch.

Q. Before the game we talked about how things are maybe different. I'm curious, what's it been like, you have some pretty regimented players on your team, particularly Kawhi and PG. What's it been like seeing their routines upended? How adaptable have they been?

DOC RIVERS: They've been great. You know, what the league has done, even though our practice times are all over the place, which that's probably the most unsettling thing. We practiced yesterday at 3:00, tomorrow at 10:00, the next day at 9:00. That is unusual. But what they've done that's great is they've given shooting times at night that you can come back, and a lot of the players, that's where the Kawhis and the PGs take advantage of that and get extra shots in.