LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 16, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

Q. I'm wondering, have you talked to your daughter about who she's rooting for in this series and is there any familial side bet going on?

DOC RIVERS: I don't think she's rooting for me, but I'm not so sure. No, we talk every day, my daughter and I, and Seth. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I told her she should look at it in this way: The family should be together, and the best way for that to happen is for us to win.

Q. Luka was talking earlier this morning about sort of your physicality defensively and how much trouble that gives opponents. How do you guys work on that, stress that?

DOC RIVERS: We really don't. It's a good question. It's just who we are. You know, your team is built the way it's built. I've had teams that have had a very physical defensive mindset, and then I've had speed teams. You know, this team has a little bit of both, but I would say definitely at the guards' position, we're probably more of a physical guard team than a speed guard team.

Q. We just heard it said this year is going to be a dogfight, so how are you guys going into physically preparing for this?

DOC RIVERS: Well, it's the Playoffs. I'm assuming the 16 teams in it are going in it with that mindset. I don't think it's this year; unless I've missed all the other Playoffs that I've been in, they're always dogfights. I don't think he's saying anything that's that earth shattering.

Q. Trez is in quarantine, I guess, still. What kind of information do you get from -- is it just communication like Trez did this today, did that today? Is there any more advance situation that you have on his health?

DOC RIVERS: There's not much. We get a half hour or an hour to work him out, not on the floor, just running outside of his room and stuff. And then during like film, we just watched a bunch of film, we're doing a little bit more now, he's there. We hold the camera phone, whatever it's called, he at least can watch our film sessions.

But other than that, listen, he hasn't played in a month. We are really surprised that he had to be in quarantine as long as he's been in, considering other cases, but it is what it is. And the tough part is how much he'll have to learn, if any.

Q. You say he has a half hour to work out outside of his room. Is he running laps in the hallway?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I don't get involved, I just know our exercise guys do it. I don't ask. I'm not qualified. Look at me. (Laughing).

Q. Yesterday Paul said that he and Kawhi visited with each other during the hiatus to kind of expedite their chemistry. I was wondering, what did you think of your two starters doing that, visiting each other, and also, how have you seen them kind of get closer and how might that translate in the Playoffs?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I think -- I love that. I know Pat did it, as well. I know a bunch of the guys did it, which was great, and it wasn't more about basketball, just being around each other. You know, the more equity you can build up with each other, the more you can use when things get hard in the games, and they will and they do.

I love that, and we have that old attitude of each guy has to make the other guy better, and when PG is making Kawhi better and Kawhi is making PG better then it filters all on to the rest of the team, you have a pretty good basketball team.

Q. What's it been like having this anticipation, this long delay and to finally get to this point on top of a season in which you kept waiting for the roster to be solid and everybody to be healthy and you never really got that? What's been the level of pent-up frustration and maybe the relief that now it's here?

DOC RIVERS: You know, that's a great question. I would say this: There were periods during the shutdown that I was just really -- I don't know, anxiety or just upset because I'd look at our team, and I'm sure there's other teams like this, but you're looking at our team, like wow, man, we've got a shot here, and we may not have a season.

So that was early on when it first shut down. It looked like it may happen for the season. That was really disappointing.

And then obviously now, we come to the bubble, and I'm thinking even greater things now. Man, not only are we going to start the season back, but we're going to have a chance to build our chemistry for the first time all year, and that doesn't happen, right, but now the Playoffs are here, and this is what we want to -- whether we've been together or not, this is what we've been waiting for, and this is our opportunity.

Q. Just to circle back to the question about Trez, you guys who are out of quarantine can go shoot around at night, they can obviously practice throughout the day. Why does a guy in quarantine get a half an hour of time to exercise?

DOC RIVERS: Well, I said it's outside. He doesn't get to go in the gym or anything. I don't understand the question, I guess. I'm asking, what do you mean? Why does he get to exercise?

Q. No, why is there -- seems like you were saying there's a limitation on how long he's allowed to really exercise throughout the day --

DOC RIVERS: I think it's more due to what they're worried about with the COVID. They don't want him around anyone. So he's not even around our guy. It's from a distance he's running out in a field somewhere outside of his room, but that's all you can do. That would be my answer. I just think it's more the NBA has done extraordinary things to keep everybody safe, and that's part of it.

Q. You had mentioned earlier in this process that having the few months off allowed you guys to do a little bit of scouting maybe that you wouldn't have had before resuming the season. How has just isolation and everything kind of changed the playoff preparation, if at all? Do you have more information and kind of scouting that you would --

DOC RIVERS: You probably do, but we're the most overscouted league in the world anyway. What I thought the shutdown did for each team is not go out and scout other teams. I thought what it did is allowed you to take an inward look at your own team and look at what you can do better. You can see there's several teams that have been clearly better coming back. They've changed. Some teams have made dramatic changes in how they play. And so that's probably because each team had an inward look at themselves for two, three months in breakdown stuff.

So you can see, especially offensively, I think every team has played almost better since they've been in the bubble.

Q. My question is you had so few games this season when you had your full lineup, when everybody was healthy in there, and you're still -- with Trez being out, that's still the case here. Does that exasperate you or give you confidence in the sense that, hey, we've dealt with it all season, we'll just have to deal with it again now?

DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't think it gives me confidence, but I'm confident that we've done it all year. You know, you wish you obviously had him. I look at rotations, it would be great that you knew exactly the rotations you wanted to play, but that would be impossible with us going into the Playoffs. That's unusual, though. That actually is unusual.

But the fact that even the last three, no Pat, no Sham, no Trez, no Lou, it's just been one of those years. We have an idea what we want to do, and that's what we're going to go with. We may be one of those teams that do make rotational changes as the Playoffs goes on, and it's probably going to happen.

Q. Luka Doncic mentioned that he considered Ivica Zubac an underrated defender, and Zu actually averages his most points against the Mavs out of any team in the NBA. What do you think works so well for him against that team?

DOC RIVERS: Well, he's a roller, and because of our offense and because of PG and Kawhi and Lou going downhill, it forces at times bigs to commit, and if a big commitments, then Zub is going to roll and get a bucket, and our guys look for Zub. It's amazing the confidence that our other guys have in Zub compared to this time last year. So just very happy for Zub. He's worked himself into that. And Zub has been a terrific defender at the rim all year for us. He's been our rim protector, literally our single rim protector, and he's done a great job of it.