LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 12, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

Q. Doc, I remember you said before the Dallas series you told Trez that between him just returning to campus, the conditioning and also the matchup, it could be a tough series for him to play like he was accustomed to. As you went into the second round, what did you envision for his role and how would you evaluate how he's done with it?

DOC RIVERS: He's just been up and down. His role is what it is. It's always been come in, give us energy, score. So I think this is a series he can play a little bit more, but Jokic is tough with Zub, Jokic is tough for Trez. He's just a hell of a player. I'm not going to put a lot of stock into that.

Q. I think his rebounding numbers are almost three a game. Is that just Denver making shots when he was on the floor or is there something he can do to increase that?

DOC RIVERS: Get stops, and then he can rebound.

Q. There was an exchange with you and Paul Millsap the other day about golfing. I was wondering how often you've had a chance to get out, and sort of what kind of boost it is to you to have something to do --

DOC RIVERS: It's great to have. You know, I haven't done it as much as I actually thought I would during the Playoffs because of the every-other-day thing. I'll go out and play a couple holes. I've been kidding with Paul because I asked the guy at the club like three weeks ago, I said, who's the leader in the pack, who plays the most, and without a thought, he said, oh, Millsap by a long shot. I thought it was JR Smith actually, but he said, oh, it's not even close.

So during the game or before the game we were laughing because I asked him did he play yesterday, and he goes, oh, yeah, I got out there. I said, When do you have time? I don't know how he's doing it but he's doing it.

Q. Have you found out who the best golfer is?

DOC RIVERS: I know who's not for sure. I know for a while J.J. Barea shot a couple 73s, 72s. I'm going to go ahead and throw his name out there. He would like that anyway.

Q. Obviously Jokic is a handful, but what in particular have you liked about what Zu has done against him?

DOC RIVERS: He's been good against him overall. I thought they picked on us a little bit yesterday. They kept getting Zub in the switches with Murray. I think that cost us 15 points. That's a lot of points. And obviously Trez deals with that a little bit better with his pace. But Zub just with his size, he's done a pretty good -- listen, Jokic is having a hell of a series against us, but I think our traps overall have really helped Zub because when you trap Jokic on the post and you've got Zub guarding him, it's a bigger guy that Jokic has to pass through, and so I think that has been actually the most effective defense that we've played on him.

Q. The Nuggets Jamal Murray said they feel like they play their best basketball when their backs are up against the wall. Do you see a difference in coaching against a team that literally has nothing to lose?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I guess you do. I think you always do. You know, you see one or two things, honestly. You either see a team that's really tight or a team that's really free. Last night I think I saw both of that. And then once they made their run, then yeah, everybody was free.

They do have a reservoir so they can look back on that they've gone through this, and so it's a fresh memory for them. But other than this -- one thing I do like about Denver is they never change the way they play. They keep playing the same way, they keep moving and cutting, and you have to have great discipline to beat them. You have to stay with it. You can't take your eye off of it. And watching our game again last night, and we're about to watch it again unfortunately for our players, we did that. Like we were very disciplined.

And then we kind of got the lead and then we start changing our coverages, doing our own thing. Of all the teams left in the bubble, this is the team that will hurt you the most when you do that. And we have great evidence to show our guys.

Q. When you guys decided to stay here and continue to play, the conversation was if we leave, that platform continues to shrink, and now there are less teams here. I wonder if you've seen that in any way in real time as people have left, those changes.

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, yeah, listen, I think we have to give it time. And I think it's got to be after the bubble is over; let me put it this way. But I guess the challenge for all of us is when we get out of the bubble, let's not just go home, let's keep our voice out there as much as we can.

You know, and from our standpoint, the two things were we have a platform, number one, and we have a chance to win a title. Let's not get lost; that's the main reason. The platform is the second reason.

Q. You talked about the sense of free play that Denver had and the urgency they've been playing with. If that has to come from your team, who do you think is going to bring that?

DOC RIVERS: I think we've shown that. In the Playoffs if you don't have a sense of urgency, we need to talk, right. But everybody processes playing free differently, you know, in the Playoffs, each individual. Some people the Playoffs are pressure. Some people just let it go. There's people that play better during the Playoffs that are role players. It's an individual thing. I don't have a name other than Kawhi is always calm. That would be my easy pick. It doesn't seem like it's bothered him much.

Q. Pat played a series-high 27 minutes last game. I'm curious how close he is to being without a minutes restriction and what you've seen from him progress-wise.

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I don't know. I think we played him five minutes or so more than his minute restriction. I'm actually not even sure of that. I'm going to say, no, he's nowhere near the minutes that we could use him, and that obviously hurts us. He's well off where we would like to play him.

Q. You were speaking of having the platform but also trying to win the championship. You guys have guys like Lloyd Pierce who are still doing shows, doing things to try and keep voices alive. You guys were able to get a lot of change happening with the strike. Have there been conversations about what other things you could do to put pressure on people --

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, Lloyd has been the coaching superstar in this whole thing as far as social justice. He really has. He's driven down to Birmingham. He's been -- I didn't know Lloyd, honestly. I think we think, especially because we're all the four or five black coaches that are still coaching, that we all know each other, and I didn't know Lloyd at all really, and through this thing I've really gotten to know him and talked to him, and he doesn't let up. Like I guarantee you tonight or today there will be a message or something from Lloyd, something you should say, something that you should do. He has a calendar that he sends out to every head coach, and it's the history of what happened that day, of some kind of social injustice every day, unfortunately. If you go through the history there's a day that you can read to your team, and he wants us to do that more. So he's been great. Love what he's doing.

Q. We were both here for 3-1 way back when. Were there things that happened in that series, adjustments they could have made, because it's tricky, you're still up 3-2 today. Were there things you learned from that? Has it entered your mind at all?

DOC RIVERS: It hasn't entered my mind much. This has nothing to do with that. That's just that negative thinking stuff that I've never allowed myself. You can always do things different. I guess we shouldn't have let Korver and Josh Smith take threes. I mean, listen, at the end of the day we have a 20-whatever point lead and Korver and Josh Smith make five or six threes each.

Q. You've done stuff in the series to be up 3-2 --

DOC RIVERS: You keep doing what you're doing.

Q. That's what I was wondering; do you react to the loss or --

DOC RIVERS: No, *you* react to the loss. Coaches look at and say to them, we're playing well and we've got to keep playing. Now, there are times where you're not playing well, that you're not doing things right, and then you've got to react. As a head coach you have to resist reaction because watching film, like we just watched the whole game as a staff, it's the most negative process -- if I had to clip every clip that our coaches wanted me to clip, we would be there -- we would go straight from here to the game tomorrow, really, because he should have done this, he should have done that. Well, great sitting here with a Coke in front of you and a hot dog and saying what he should have done, but in live time it's not realistic.

But there are things that we have to do better even in the game. I was frustrated yesterday long before -- I was frustrated at halftime because I really thought we should have been up way more, and we had that game where we wouldn't allow ourselves to be great yesterday. We have to allow ourselves to be great, and to do that you have to have great discipline.

We didn't do that yesterday.