LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 28, 2021

Tyronn Lue

Press Conference

Q. You've talked about the importance of giving Luka and the Mavs a lot of different looks defensively and you kind of touched on it yesterday, but moving forward do you think we'll see a more simplified approach defensively?

TYRONN LUE: Yes, that's what we got to try to do, especially in this game, just keep it simple, let our guys play free, and that's our biggest change. We got to be on the same page, make sure our communication is at a high level, and then go from there.

Q. By any chance, can you give us the starting lineup for this game?

TYRONN LUE: I can't at this time. I'm sorry.

Q. My question is, Tim Hardaway Junior has killed you guys on basically every mistake you guys have made defensively. And outside of the obvious, which is just to stop making mistakes, what are some of the ways you can kind of upset his timing and make him uncomfortable on that end of the floor?

TYRONN LUE: I think physicality. I think we're off his body a little too much on the other end. I think when he's coming off screens we got to get to his body, be physical, fight through those screens. He's coming off clean on a lot of those looks because we're not into the body. So we got to do a better job with that and just try to make it hard for him. We understand that. He is having a big series and we got to try to shut him down as best as we can.

Q. With a game like today, there's, obviously you talked about words like urgency and instead of pressure and all that. But with a game like today, what do you say to the team in terms of coming out there with a crowd that's got, I think they got 17,000 out there, what do you say before a game like this to your team?

TYRONN LUE: Just focus on one game. We can't focus on four. We got to focus on tonight's game. That's the most important. Block everything else out. So whatever we got to do, whatever sacrifices got to be made to win this game, that's what we have to do. So that's our mindset going into tonight.

Q. We saw that Serge was listed as questionable. You talked about his status yesterday as far as him not feeling as well, just want to know if there's any update on how he's feeling and how he's been able to impact the team while y'all have been in Dallas.

TYRONN LUE: He feels a little bit better but nothing significant where he's going to be able to play right now. So we're going to continue to keep communicating with him and we don't know after today or tomorrow how he's going to feel, but right now he's out, so we just got to do what we got to do, next man up mentality, and we got to go from there.

Q. You mentioned the next man up mentality. You guys have had it all season. With Serge out, does that mean basically in some ways more minutes for possibly DeMarcus to make his appearance in this series or is it more just we're going to go small and kind of see what happens?

TYRONN LUE: We can go DeMarcus, play more minutes with Terance Mann. We got to just read the game and feel the game out.

Q. In terms of being without Serge, I feel like you guys had a good amount of time to prepare for being without Serge toward the end of the regular season. Do you feel like you guys are prepared to be able to play without him and then mix lineups up tonight?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I think so. He was out for a long time throughout the course of the season. I think 30 games in a row. So we had to adapt and play a certain style of basketball and our guys got used to it. But like I said I hate to see anyone go down but we are prepared to play a different way when Serge is out.

Q. You talked about wanting to be on the same page defensively and the miscommunications that have hurt that in Games 1 and 2. Given two days between games, like, did you feel like you had the time to make some sort of progress or will you really know until the first quarter starts?

TYRONN LUE: Well we made progress last two days and like you never know until the game starts, but things are pretty simple, pretty simplified and we understand what we got to do. So we got to be physical, we understand that, we got to have a defensive mindset from the start, but we got to shrink the floor. We got to help our teammates and be aware. So guys understand what we need to do and we're going to be better tonight. So that's it.

Q. On DeMarcus, just talk about physicality and obviously you talked about energy. Those are definitely two things that he can bring. Do you talk to him about that or do you just kind of unleash him or what do you tell a veteran like that?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, we talked the last couple days and he's itching to play and just got to see how the flow of the game goes. We know he's contributed at the end of the season and how he was great for us so every time he's got into a big game situation he's played well. So we'll see what happens tonight.

Q. Wanted to ask you about -- you put DeMarcus Cousins in the game, is there a chance that Terance Mann is going to come off the bench quicker? I don't think you're starting him but will he come off the bench quicker in Game 3?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, we need to see the flow of the game. He's definitely going to play in the first half, so I love his energy, I love what he brought when he checked in the game in Game 2 and that's what we need, like his energy is infectious we have been talking about it all season and now his opportunity is here.

Q. What's the sense you get from your team after practice yesterday and just being around them this morning going into this game?

TYRONN LUE: It feels good. We all feel confident. Like I said, the sense of urgency is there, we understand that tonight's a big game for us and we also understand we got to clean up our mistakes. They're too good of an offensive team to make mistakes and let them capitalize on us with those mistakes. They understand what they need to do, and like I said, we looked at a lot of things, guys are ready to go and ready to play. So their spirits are up and they understand that some mistakes have been in the way they're shooting the ball. As they are we still made a lot of mistakes to help them out with their shooting.