LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 23, 2020

Doc Rivers

Postgame Press Conference

Mavericks 135, Clippers 133 (OT)

Q. You guys have a big lead. Obviously they made the big run. How much did you think that shocked them or shocked your guys or just took them out emotionally?

COACH RIVERS: I think probably all the above. Honestly, I thought (indiscernible) got the lead and stopped playing. And give them credit they kept playing.

I thought that end of the second, the whole second quarter, they're making a run, getting back in the game. It changed the whole complexity of the game. Honestly, I thought we were very emotionally weak tonight, to be honest.

Q. Why do you think that is? They're mostly weak. This team has been geared towards the playoffs obviously all year?

COACH RIVERS: If I knew that I would be Sigmund Freud. But at the end of the day we're up 20, and we're getting technical fouls. Things like that give the team juice.

Throughout -- and I've been saying this for three games now -- we're so much better than what we're playing. But honestly, give Dallas credit. Like (indiscernible) giving up 21. They're minus Porzingis. But they didn't and they just stayed in the game. They just kept playing, they played together. They moved the ball.

And you can see the different in the spirits. Like they make a run and everybody's excited. You know, they make a run on us, and we cave-in. So that's on all of us. Me too. I've got to get our guys right.

Q. Obviously this is a blow, and the emotions weren't where you wanted them for this game. What does it do to you guys emotionally going forward?

COACH RIVERS: We're fine that way. The series is 2-2. You can make a case it should be 3-1. Either way you can make that case. But at the end of the day the series is 2-2. We gotta play better.

Listen, defensively, without Porzingis they scored 135 points, and we're supposed to be an elite defensive team. Right now we're not. They shot 50 percent from the field tonight. They made shots. They attacked us off the dribble. They made plays. It was never anything complicated. They just stared us in the face and beating us off the dribble.

Q. On the telecast, they showed Trez hugging Doncic before the game, and Mike Green said you had spoken to Trez. I wondered what thought about what Trez said to Doncic in Game 3?

COACH RIVERS: I don't know what he said, so I can't answer that.

Q. I'm curious, in overtime it seemed like they were really targeting Reggie with Luka switching and stuff. Were you okay with him switching on him, or do you wish you guys had done something differently there?

COACH RIVERS: Obviously Luka made the shot, right? Clearly we wished we could have done something else, but there's only 3 seconds left. I thought overall Reggie did pretty well. But the last play we let him go left for a shot.

Bottom line is the last play didn't lose the game for us; it was our entire play from the second quarter on.

Q. I mean, you mentioned emotionally weak today. Will this make it easier to get their attention tomorrow at practice and remind them that you can't assume anything in this part of the season?

COACH RIVERS: Listen, in life, the only problem with life is usually you have to learn a lesson first before you make an adjustment in life. I wish it were the other way. Like you saw it and did it at first, then you never have to learn the lesson. But sometimes you don't learn lessons. So we'll find that out. The thing is we're not an emotionally weak team. But today we were. And so it is what it is.

Q. Sorry to harp on the emotion of this team. You have a lot of leaders on your team. And I know you're going to say it starts with you, but when you look at the makeup of this team, what are you trying to hear from your leaders?

COACH RIVERS: I think just the two guys that are doing the most positive talk were Lou and Kawhi. And they were saying the right stuff. Like, they were. But everybody has got to follow that, too. And sometimes you want to hear it and sometimes you get inside your head and you don't hear it. I thought tonight was a night that a lot of messages were not delivered, including mine. So that is something that as a coach I always take on myself. I have to make sure the way we're supposed to play is delivered, how we're supposed to play is delivered, and that we do it.

Q. Did you anticipate them switching on the inbounds there? Because looked like Kawhi started on Luka and they switched and got ready. Did you anticipate that happening out there?

COACH RIVERS: Yeah, you always switch everything at the end of the clock. But you're supposed to switch to a denial. And we didn't. Like, again, we just didn't. We switched and allowed their best player to catch the ball with three seconds left.

Q. I asked you this before the game, if you're not going to do anything special to get Paul George off, what's the conversation you have to kind of get him comfortable playing like he's supposed to be able to play?

COACH RIVERS: Listen, we've run the same stuff all year; Paul George averages 25 points. So it's not like they're doing something defensively. We just gotta play with great confidence. Paul, again I still believe this, he's going to be fine. He just has to be more aggressive, aggressive in the right way. And I think it will work out for him. We do run plays for them. We do all the other stuff. But we have to get him more involved and that's just really running our stuff the way we should run it.

Q. I've heard you speak here about having a great individual defenders on the team but not feeling as those the guys are playing great defensively as a unit. Do you feel like that's what you're seeing in the playoffs so far?

COACH RIVERS: Yeah. First of all, it was (indiscernible). I don't think we've been a great individual defensive team. I think we've been passive.

I think they've been able to catch the ball wherever they wanted to catch the ball. I think they're hitting us first on all the pick-and-rolls. And give them credit; they're so much more -- the more physical team and the more aggressive team. It's not even close.