LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 22, 2021

Nicolas Batum

Postgame Press Conference

Dallas Mavericks - 113, Los Angeles Clippers - 103

Q. You guys only shot 11-40 from 3. But coach said before you sat down that he thought the shot quality was actually pretty good in the first quarter. Despite the misses, do you feel generally comfortable with the types of shots that you guys were able to generate in this game?

NICOLAS BATUM: I mean, that's the way we played all year long. We were a good three-point shooting team all year, because we played that way. So they made shots today, 11-39, you got to be better than that, for sure. We got a great shooter. We prove it all year long. So we got to get back to that and make shots next game.

Q. You guys, on the defensive side of the ball you guys gave up over 60 points to the other guys. Finney-Smith, Richardson, Brunson, Hardaway Jr. I know the plan was to kind of get the ball out of Luka's hands, but you couldn't have counted on giving up that many points to those guys, right?

NICOLAS BATUM: I agree. I agree. If we want to win that series we better make sure, like, we take all those guys out of the series as well. We know what Luka is going to do, obviously, so he's been a great player, but we got to make sure like to, the other guys doesn't have a great series. Some of those guys had great games today. They made big-time shots when they needed to. So we got to do better next game, make sure we shut them down, that's what we need to do. If we want to win Game 2 we got to step up the defense, do a better job on Luka for sure. But over on defense make sure the other guys have a huge impact on the game.

Q. When you, in the third quarter you kind of took, it appeared you took responsibility for Luka and you kind of slowed his game down. What did you do, how do you do that? He's a tough scorer. How do you get in position to kind of slow him down and make that, make his game tough? How do you do that personally?

NICOLAS BATUM: I just try as much as I can to deny him from the ball and when he had it, we tried to make him give it up. So especially, like, I think he had 30 points in the first three and only one point in the fourth. Maybe I got it wrong, but he got something like that. So we just got to do a better job and not give him assists. We know if he creates plays for the other guys we are in good shape so we have less playing, make, like, he makes so many plays for the other guys, we got to make sure he doesn't do that next game and rest of the series and make sure to stop the other guys as well. So it's a team effort. We have to do it as a team.

Q. You guys were kind of able to contain Kristaps, playing some smaller lineups with that. Is that something you feel you can exploit more? I know he has a height advantage but you guys would have the floor spacing that way. Is that something you think you can exploit more moving forward?

NICOLAS BATUM: Maybe. I don't really know. We'll see what we do in Game 2, but maybe, yeah.

Q. What did you feel out there today? How do you guys feel like you did with that small ball lineup with him out there on the floor?

NICOLAS BATUM: We played that lineup a lot of times this year. That's not the first time we played the lineup. So we got to adjust. He's a great player and we try to find some ways to take him out of the game. So I don't know what we're going to do in Game 2. We'll see what happens.