LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 13, 2020

Ivica Zubac

Press Conference

Q. Zu, you guys now know that you're the 2 seed facing up with Dallas next week. What are your first impressions of that series?

IVICA ZUBAC: I think it's going to be a great series. They've got some really good players over there, and we've played them like three times this year, and I think we'll match up well with them. We go into every series wanting to win, and that's how it's going to be against Dallas.

Q. The last time you played the Mavs you had your perfect game against them. What is it about that match-up that you feel like you tend to thrive a little bit more?

IVICA ZUBAC: I feel like I can get to offensive rebounds more. I feel like rolling through the pocket, it feels like I have more space. You know, I just feel physically that I can get a lot of offensive rebounds. Their starting center, Dwight Powell, is out, so I think physically I can really take advantage of that of that match-up.

Q. You guys have some players on your roster, some of your teammates, who have been deep into the Playoffs before. I'm curious, do those guys -- do they play a role in helping the guys who maybe haven't played very often in the Playoffs, do they play a role in kind of helping you guys understand what's ahead of you potentially with a long playoff run?

IVICA ZUBAC: Sure. I mean, they're giving us so much advice, Kawhi has been through the Playoffs, and PG went deep into the Playoffs, so there's a lot they can help us with, especially our young guys. You know, I'm just happy we've got them on our team. It's much easier going through this process with them and with their experience, their will to show us and give us some advice and teach us.

Q. What's the mindset for you guys when you go into tomorrow's game, given the seeding and all that's already taken care of? And then two, also being away from love ones obviously is tough, so just your thoughts on the league kind of announcing all the guidelines for guests after the first round.

IVICA ZUBAC: The mindset for the next game is just to get better. That's what we're trying to do from the beginning when we got here in Orlando. We've still got a lot of space to improve, and that's going to be our mentality tomorrow, and of course to win the game. We always come into every game to win it.

I think our biggest thing should be improvement with every practice and every game. Can you say the second question again?

Q. The second question was about your family and them being able to come.

IVICA ZUBAC: Yeah, it's tough, but we've all got the same goal, and we know if we want to continue the season, we're going to have to make some sacrifices. We can't wait to have our family and our loved ones back, and it's exciting. I think that's going to help us even more with our approach.

Q. I was wondering, a lot of you guys talked about during the pandemic and the suspension you guys used to group chat to kind of stay in touch and learn about each other, but now that you're in the bubble, what has that been like? What have you done off the court to get to know each other even more, and have you learned anything new about Kawhi now that you see him every day? Is there anything that you know more about him that you didn't know before?

IVICA ZUBAC: You know, we've been hanging out a lot. There's not much to do here, especially now when we're playing these games. We've been hanging out in the players' lounge together, just going to the pool together sometimes. That's really about it. We practice, we have meetings, we watch film all the time. Between games there's not a lot of free time. But definitely being around the guys every day, you learn a lot about them. I don't want to say some private things about the other guys that they want to keep in private, so I would like to keep that for myself, but you definitely see some stuff that you usually don't know about your teammates.