LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 30, 2021

Nicolas Batum

Postgame Press Conference

Los Angeles Clippers 106, Dallas Mavericks 81

Q. When did you find out you were starting tonight's game?

NICOLAS BATUM: Right after Game 3. When we started that way -- two days ago, just say, okay, we don't start that way on Sunday.

Q. With Kristaps getting off to a good start for himself, how did you deal with him and get off -- finally get off to a good first quarter start?

NICOLAS BATUM: We knew they were going to go through him. We took him away last game, so we kind of knew they were going to go through him to get in rhythm. That means if they do that, the other guys will get shots like they did the last couple games.

So we didn't panic. He had good shots. He made some big shots but we can't get going the in the first five minutes like he did the first three games -- we did good, and then start missing shots and we kept attacking and attacking and PG and Kawhi did a good job to attack them to get us going right away. Then the bench came in and did a good job.

Q. Early this season you brought up a very interesting name as far as your role and what you thought you could accomplish on this team in Boris Diaw. I was watching Boris Diaw starting at center for playoff teams for championship teams, and I just want to know over the course of the season if you've gotten in touch with Boris at all and if you've watched how he played, and how that might have impacted how you are doing playing more of a big man role for this particular team this year?

NICOLAS BATUM: I talked -- it's funny, because like yesterday, that's why I call the video guys and I say, I need footage on Boris and Draymond Green, two of the best in the last ten years, they are the two best at doing what I have to do, like those small center, they can be power forward and play one through five. That's what I did yesterday. I watched video of Boris in 2014 and Draymond the last five years, and I tried to inspire myself from those two guys.

Q. When you look back to the flight to Dallas or even the practice after being down 0-2, what's changed? The momentum has completely shifted. If you can pinpoint one thing that changed for you guys?

NICOLAS BATUM: I mean, we knew our mistakes. We just had to adjust. We knew what we had done wrong. We had a game plan the first two games. We made a lot of mistakes. I think they scored like 51 games off mistakes in the first game and 40-some in the second game, and we needed to cut that.

After the first eight minutes of Game 3 we did that and we did it tonight. We correct our mistakes. Still got two offensive rebounds, two 75-footer -- but we did a good job I think on the rebound and contained Luka in other ways.

But we've got to move on. It's just 2-2. We are right where we're supposed to be. We are supposed to be at 2-2 technically. So now got to go home and take care of the home court and take care of this game on Wednesday or we can put ourselves in a bad situation if we don't do the job on Wednesday.

Q. What's Ty been like the entire time, down 0-2, 20-11, what's he been like?

NICOLAS BATUM: He didn't panic. We didn't panic. We knew we have a lot of people in the crowd and even for us, it's pretty cool to have that because it's been awhile since we played with like almost 20,000 people in the stands. That was meant for us, and that was pretty cool to play in that environment. We regroup ourselves.

At that point we really had nothing to lose so we just get our composure and play defense and be tougher. We did it, and now we start the game that way and we start the second half, because I think we have bad start to the third quarter every time the last two games, so we had a good start to the third quarter, to gain momentum again. So that's what we have to do moving forward.