LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 8, 2020

Doc Rivers

Postgame Press Conference

Clippers - 122, Trail Blazers - 117

Q. Doc, I have multiple questions but I guess I'll start with these: I guess what went into the decision to sit out some of the starters late, and then I guess how did you win that game?

DOC RIVERS: That last part I don't know. Our young guys played great, man. They made shots, got key stops. We knew before the game the minutes that we were going to play our guys, and once they got to those minutes, we took them out.

Q. How surprised were you to see Damian Lillard miss those two free throws?

DOC RIVERS: You know, listen, everybody misses -- I've seen Larry Bird miss two free throws. I was shocked because he does it. He's a very clutch player. We just caught the one day that he does. Tiger Woods misses five-foot putts. It happens. It's a human game, and you'll take it any way you can get it.

Q. Obviously there's implications for the eighth seed. Based on the results of this game, how do you kind of balance that, or do you pay attention to that?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, that's not our problem. We said that before the game. The guys knew before the game we weren't going to play them but a certain amount of minutes, and I made it a point that we're going to try to win the game, just going out and playing basketball. It's a competition. It always is, it always will be, and I want our guys feeling that way.

Q. What can you say about the support you got from the guys cheering from the bench and especially Pat today?

DOC RIVERS: Pat is just loud all the time. He was great, but Kawhi, everybody. It's great when you see a team involved. I think they got a bigger kick out of it than the guys on the floor because this is a young group playing that never plays, and they're the group that's cheering for them. So it was like they were giving it back to them, so that was great. That was a great team builder.

Q. Landry had 19 tonight, that was the third most points he's scored all season. What did you see from him?

DOC RIVERS: In the second half, he was just more aggressive. Got together with him at halftime and told him to be more aggressive, and I thought he did that. I loved his drives because the drives will set up his jump shot, so I enjoyed seeing that.

Q. Is PG okay? That was just a matter of time restrictions?

DOC RIVERS: PG is fine.

Q. Does the way you guys finished the game, does that give the players more confidence who are on the court or the coaches more confidence in them the way they finished the game?

DOC RIVERS: It's everybody's confidence. We want our guys that don't play a lot to play well. We want them to get better. It's rare that you can get a young group of guys in a pressure game that has playoff implications, and today we were able to do that. That's unusual, and it all happened, and we came up winners, so that was great.

Q. I just wanted to get your impressions on what you did in the second half. Defensively in the first half you gave up 38 in the first and 37 in the second quarter and then in the second half you gave up 21 in each. Just your thoughts?

DOC RIVERS: We trapped a lot more. I thought we were way more alert. We had a lot more defensive mistakes in the first half and I thought we cleaned it up, and we got lucky a little bit, guys. They missed some shots that they normally make. Even the last three by Dame, we were supposed to foul there. He got off a great look. Sometimes you're good, sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're both. I thought we were both tonight.