LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 11, 2020

Doc Rivers

Postgame Press Conference

Nuggets 111, Clippers 105

Q. I wanted to get your thoughts on just kind of that fourth quarter. Do you think you let your foot off the pedal? What did you see in the fourth quarter?

DOC RIVERS: Give them credit. I thought they kept playing and I didn't think we played the same; I'll just put it that way. Thought we started gambling way too much on defense. I thought we stopped moving the ball on offense. But give them some credit. I thought they hung in there and they just played tough. Like they are not going to go away. You've got to know that, so give them credit. They stayed in.

Q. Obviously series are emotional and stuff like that, and you lose a 3-1 game and feels like you were right on the doorstep. What's the message after a game like that to re-affirm that it's 3-2?

DOC RIVERS: Shouldn't have to re-affirm. We earned the 3-1 lead, right, and so we had a chance to win a game that we didn't win. You know, Denver said that the last two games, they felt the same way. Maybe we returned the favor.

Now we've got to come back in Game 6 and get ready.

Q. Michael Porter, Jr. Made some very impactful plays. Is it hard to plan with his unique abilities?

DOC RIVERS: Well, not that play, I can tell you that. That was a big three. Our whole room on the floor, we didn't. The one thing you love about the kid is he's not scared, you know, and he showed that.

Q. Was there a game plan thing that allowed them to come back in that game, or you guys stopped scoring as much, or did you guys take your foot off the pedal, do you feel like?

DOC RIVERS: It's basketball, man. They played well. They started making shots. If you look at some of the shots, we have wide-open threes that we didn't make. So it's just -- it's called basketball, and give them a lot of credit.

Q. Historically, close-out games are the toughest to play. Why do you think that is, and do you think players understand better that close-out games are the toughest to win?

DOC RIVERS: Well, I don't know if you need to get into the close-out. Just winning a game in the NBA is hard and closing out games in the NBA is hard. You see it every night.

We definitely lost our discipline, there's no doubt about that. I guess that would be the lesson.

Q. To follow up on that, when you talk about losing discipline, are there certain areas you're going to look back on this game and think if you had held tight in one area, you would be okay?

DOC RIVERS: No, because listen, there's still a lead in this league, and we made our mistakes, but it's a game of mistakes. We're going to go back and we're going to look at the tape and see the things that we didn't do and be prepared to do them better, but both teams do that. We're going to look at the shots we got and most of them were great shots, so what do you do? Tell him he has to make it, you know what I mean. So at the end of the day, you definitely learn -- I thought discipline, defensively, was far worse than our discipline offensively, I will say that.

Q. You mentioned to give Denver credit. Is that especially through with the circumstances of the bubble and to keep coming back when they are in that environment?

DOC RIVERS: They have done it before. They were down 3-1 in the Utah series and they made a comeback and now they have life. So Game 6 is going to be a heck of a game.

Q. Obviously you're disappointed for the loss but what are the positive things that you can take out of this game plan?

DOC RIVERS: That we can get a big lead (laughing) and close it out.

There will be a lot of good things we can take from this game that will help us moving forward. I have to watch the tape and then I'll be able to tell you what they are.

Q. Millsap carried Denver in the game. What made him so effective tonight?

DOC RIVERS: He's just aggressive. I thought he played aggressive. He played hard. You know, they put him in the same places they put him in all series that tonight he came up big for.

Q. Kawhi was fantastic, again.

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we couldn't ask much more of him, you know, honestly. Our rotations got messed up at the end of the quarter because we always take him out. We had a couple guys that need more rest, but I'm thinking, well, this guy needs rest, but we left him in, and when he went off the floor is when the game changed.

Usually, you know with, that unit that we've put out on the floor with Trezl and Lou and PG, we keep scoring. We just didn't score in that stretch and I thought that was a pivotal moment.

Q. You had him off the bench to come back in and then you got two quick layups?

DOC RIVERS: We were just trying to get him minutes at that point. We were just trying to buy him every minute that we could.