LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 15, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

Q. Doc, you get JaMychal today, your roster is slowly inching toward completion. In terms of Landry, Zu and Marcus, are any of them on campus and kind of beginning that quarantine process yet?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I don't even know to be honest yet. I don't check. To be honest, JaMychal walked in and surprised the hell out of me. Because they're in quarantine and stuff, you don't ever know.

Q. I had a question just about you and all of your coaching peers and how unique this entire situation is. Specifically when you're talking about you guys not having your families with you, your staff members not having families, players through the first round, Stan Van Gundy and I talked about it yesterday and he used the word "overwhelming" to say that this is more on a coach's plate for a longer period of time than you guys are used to. How different is it and how are you navigating all those things?

DOC RIVERS: Well, it's different, but it's different for everyone. This is the first time we've all gone through this unless you've done a lot of camps when you were a coach as a kid. This is what it feels like in some ways, one of the most elite basketball camps in the history of mankind, when you think about it. That's basically where we're at.

But it's unique for sure. You know, there is a lot on your plate for sure, but it's an awesome responsibility. I don't know, I think it's really cool. You have a chance to come out of this and play games and then go to the Playoffs. I think it's awesome, and I think what the NBA has done -- like I keep hearing a lot of negative stuff out of here. Listen, it's not normal world, but what we're doing and what they've done overall, man, I don't know -- I feel like we're in the safest place in the world. Just the work that they've put into this is amazing.

Q. Back in April when we spoke, you said you were reviewing film and kind of evaluating some stuff that you had learned throughout the season now that you had some time to reflect. One of your observations you said was you wish you had gone small a little bit more at the 5 with JaMychal or Marcus, just kind of the floor spacing it provides. What other observations have you learned over this time that you can share that you think you want to try to --

DOC RIVERS: There's a lot of things. You know, with us, we just have so many lineups that we really never -- we used them, we just didn't have enough time to work on them. One of the things we were just talking about before is because we're together for this long, the uniqueness of having two and three and four weeks to work on things, obviously you've got to have health and all your players to do that, but playing four smalls with one big, playing all five smalls. We did it during the season, we just didn't do it a lot and we didn't work on it at all. Giving us the opportunity to work on it is going to be great for us, and honestly just getting all our guys in that -- Reggie and Marcus that we made trades with, and now they get to actually learn the detail of our offense and defense I think will be great for us, as well.

Q. A lot of people have been talking about the hotline that's been set up for folks to police each other over there. I wonder what your feeling is on it. Do you like that it's there? Do you think it's going to cause trouble? What are your thoughts?

DOC RIVERS: I turned in LeBron yesterday. I'm turning in Pop today. I'm trying to turn all these guys in. I think it's phenomenal. We're going to be the only team left when I'm done with this hotline thing.

No, you know, it's funny, I know about it, but I don't think it's a problem at all. I think it's good. Like we do -- this is not some normal thing. COVID obviously, it's not only that you can get sick but you can get other people sick, and so this is very important for all of us. We want to do our jobs. So I think having a hotline, I guess that's what they're calling it, I guess that's important.

Q. We've heard a bunch of players refer to the vibe in there as kind of like a big AAU tournament. Do you see that, and if so, how?

DOC RIVERS: Well, I'm too old. I obviously didn't play AAU. We played at the parks in Chicago.

But I have kids that played AAU. Again, there's a good vibe here. It really is. Not just from team within team, it's just walking around. You're seeing coaches that you don't spend a lot of time with, you're seeing other players. You know, it's actually really cool.

As much as we play against each other in the same league, we really don't have the opportunity to ever talk to each other, and so in some ways, again, it's been the neatest basketball camp in the history of the game.

Q. Wondering if you can take us through, you guys have been there about five days now. Take us through your day-to-day. How much time do you have for yourself? Do you go golfing? How much do you still review film and look at stuff related to the team?

DOC RIVERS: It's mostly team stuff. Nothing changes. Once the season starts, and this to me is the season has started because we're back in training camp, on off days you have time for that. We'll have an off day here and there and then we'll go golfing, at least I do. Some guys go fishing. But it's neat, like this morning, even though we practiced I got up and rode my bike and saw the coaches running and jogging. So you still do that.

But I would say for the most part, you're still doing your job, basketball. The difference is after you're here on the floor, you're in the team room. If you're not working out or something you're back in your room. So there's no yard to go to, that's for sure.