LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 13, 2020

Doc Rivers

Postgame Press Conference

Nuggets 111, LA Clippers 98

Q. Considering the way these last two games have been lost, what's your challenge and what's the read on what your team's mind-set is after seeing these big leads disappear?

DOC RIVERS: I don't know what it is right now, but it will be good by Game 7. Listen I thought once Murray went down with that injury, from that point on, the game, the complexion of the game completely changed. I thought we had were the more physical team. We were attacking and we were getting into the paint and from that point on, if you look at that point on it was a reverse of script. I really, and I use all my time-outs just to try to get us to plan the way we play each game to get these leads.

It was beautiful basketball, and then we stopped playing. We stopped moving the ball. We stopped attacking on offense. And then that's what lawed them to score on defense because we didn't score.

It's funny, usually, you know, at the end of the game, you just say our defense let us down. I thought it was offense tonight. I really did. I thought our offense let us down.

Q. What's your message to this team after these last two games and entering a Game 7?

DOC RIVERS: I don't know yet. I'll let you know.

Q. (Inaudible).

DOC RIVERS: You know, Trezl is up-and-down for us right now, we know that. Listen, if you go on just plus minus, which I think a lot of people do, I don't think either one of our 5s were effective tonight if you want to be honest. And so we have to get better play out of both of them -- yeah, I get that. But when you sometimes watch the game and then add up that minus and see if he was involved in it, you know, it does happen sometimes. So just watch it first before we make that critique.

Q. The other day you said that the team wouldn't allow itself to be great and obviously you were playing so well today and then stopped playing as well as you were. How frustrating is that for you to see it?

DOC RIVERS: It's frustrating, but listen, when you decide to be a coach, it's not going to be Roses every day. So we clearly have the right formula as far as how we're playing, and then we keep losing it. You know, but again, I just thought we lost our pace. I called one timeout in the middle of the third and said guys, we're not going to dribble the game out, all right. We're going to have to keep playing because they are not going away.

And you know, they didn't go away. So give them credit. Like they made every shot. They made all the right plays. We missed some shots. But I didn't like our shots. I didn't think -- in the first half, we touched the paint, and then the ball came out and we got shots.

In the second half, we held the ball, and we put no pressure on the defense.

Q. You've been around the league awhile but stats have evolved throughout your coaching tenure. How much stock or do you pay attention to lineup data in terms of who is better with who on the team?

DOC RIVERS: We do it all. You know, I got 1,000 coaches. We have fine analytical guys. I don't think there's anything we don't see.

Q. When you talk about just not being able to sustain that throughout the whole game -- is that a lack of concentration? Is it a lack of killer instinct?

DOC RIVERS: I have no idea. Honestly it will take me again watching the game again. I caught it early, though, even before we lost the lead, I turned to Ty and said we lost our pace. We're walking the ball up the floor. We were getting stops beginning of the third quarter and just we lost our pace, and that's just not us. We can't play the way we tried to play.

Q. You went with JaMychal as the first big off the bench and he gave you great minutes, what did you think of his performance and why did you want to go with Reggie who had not played in two games late in the fourth?

DOC RIVERS: Because sometimes we're down and you just try to go with someone. One thing Reggie has done is he's shown the ability to make shots. He struggles in other areas but he does have that ability, and at the time when you put Reggie in, we needed someone to make a shot because we weren't doing that, so that's, great example, you look at JaMychal, plus minus, minus ten, he played better than that. He was terrific tonight overall for us. He was just out on the floor with a unit that lost the lead, and so his plus/minus doesn't look right. That's why you've got to be so careful with just reading in the plus minus.

Q. You have a veteran team. How do you handle them before this Game 7?

DOC RIVERS: Yeah, I am -- honestly this team is not -- this is I don't know how many playoff games but that's all we've played. This is not a team, a veteran team, as far as where they are from, but they are not a veteran team together.

So thank God it's an afternoon game. Got the rest of the day. Got time to prepare tomorrow and get ready for the next game.