LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 29, 2021

Tyronn Lue

Press Conference

Q. You've talked this season about the importance of small, small pick-and-rolls, and last night Rondo did a great job as the screener and outlet for Kawhi. Drilling this stuff over the full season, do you feel that's something everyone is super comfortable with at this point?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I believe so. Like I say, a lot of times the small point guards, they don't want to switch on to Kawhi or PG, so that's something we can take advantage of, so that's why we've wanted to work so hard this season on just making sure that we've got that down.

Like I said, last night it was really good for us going down the stretch in that fourth quarter of just mixing it up and changing it up, and then when they double-teamed was able to exploit their double teams and take advantage of them.

Q. I just wanted to know, what do you think changed this game as opposed to Game 2? I saw in the first half where PG had a stellar first half; in Game 2 he dropped 28 but you guys still lost. What do you think was the major difference for this game as opposed to Game 2?

TYRONN LUE: Well, I thought it was pretty similar to Game 2, continued to throw our advance passes and continued to attack the paint. That's what we wanted to do. We've been harping on it all season long about getting to the rim, getting to the basket, and Kawhi and PG put a lot of pressure on the rim right now of trying to attack downhill.

I just think we just kept doing it, kept attacking. I thought Kawhi was really, really aggressive at carrying the load in the fourth quarter. PG carried the load first half when we were struggling to score and they got up 19, so those two, like I said, worked well together, and they was able to keep attacking the whole game, PG in the first half and Kawhi in the second half.

Q. Just wondering what's the itinerary for you guys? You've had two days off in between games and obviously just one now. Between the end of last night's game and next game, what happens?

TYRONN LUE: We've got film when I get off with you guys. We've got film right now, just to clean up a few things and still go over our little game plan mistakes here and there. Just watch film, kind of walk through a couple things that we want to adjust and get better at, and that's it.

Q. How is Serge feeling today? Have your hopes increased that he could be available for Game 4? How is that looking?

TYRONN LUE: I'm not sure yet. I haven't had a chance to talk to him. I know he FaceTimed me late last night but I didn't get a chance to call him back, so I'd better do that when I get off the line with you guys.

Q. Is he back in LA right now?

TYRONN LUE: Yes.

Q. With the starting lineup obviously you put Reggie in there and you've used that a ton during the regular season. Is that something you'll likely go back to based on what you saw?

TYRONN LUE: Yes, sir.

Q. One of the things that's pretty shocking to me as a spectator of this series is some of the Mavericks' shooting, and you look at Maxi Kleber last year in the Playoffs, 19 percent, this year he's 64; Tim Hardaway is at 65 percent from three. As a coach or as players on the court, are you equally as shocked? Because as a spectator it's actually unreal to see.

TYRONN LUE: I mean, they're very good shooters. I would say shocked shooting 65 percent. But they make shots. That's what they do. We've got to do a better job of paying attention to those guys and making sure we're trying to run them off the line as best as possible.

That's part of the game plan. We've got to get those two guys off the line, make them play inside the three-point line. But we haven't done a good job of it so far in this series, so we've got to just keep working it until we can try to clean that up.

Q. I wanted to ask about Friday's feistiness. The guys definitely showed some fight, like Terance especially and even Reggie. How important was that and how telling was that?

TYRONN LUE: It was good. We just still got to keep (indiscernible). We did a great job of staying poised throughout the course of the game. We got down 19. We stayed poised. We stayed together and just kept trusting. That's something we've been talking about all year, just trusting and keeping our poise, and they did that, so we was able to weather the storm early, come back and take the lead at halftime, and then I think in that second half we really executed in that fourth quarter, just attacking and taking advantage of their double teams and whatever they was trying to throw at us defensively.

Q. I know that you're not on social media and everything, but when you get into these playoff series, who do you lean on outside of the team to kind of get you through or to just kind of have just a sounding board, someone like outside of the team that you're currently on?

TYRONN LUE: You know, use Doc, use Jerry West, and then Brian Shaw a little bit. But I pretty much just try and stay within myself and our coaching staff and try to make the necessary adjustments and things that we need to do, like I said, to win games. But I do have a lot of great people in my corner that I can turn to and talk to about any situation. I have those three guys that I mostly talk to, and then we have our coaching staff; Larry Drew I lean on a lot because he's been with me for a lot of the rides and he understands what I like and what I want to do, so we kind of think alike and think similar. He's on my staff, so that's what's great about the whole situation.

Q. In the second half, Dallas's role players basically only had 29 points on 29 shots, Luka was still making shots, but is that kind of, I guess, the game plan in the series is look, it's going to be difficult to stop Luka from making things, but if we can kind of contain everyone else, that's going to make everyone's job easier?

TYRONN LUE: Yes, that's our mindset. You know, he has the ball in his hands 90 percent of the game, and he's going to make every play. He's going to make everybody better. We want to try to make him a scorer and try to take the other guys out. We've still got to do a better job with that, but I thought last game was a step forward. We've just got to clean up some of the mistakes that we're making and then go from there.