LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 6, 2021

Luke Kennard

Postgame Press Conference

Los Angeles Clippers 126, Dallas Mavericks 111

Q. Congrats on the big performance today. In Game 6 you showed what you can do out there. What was the message tonight when you came out -- especially for a big Game 7 like this?

LUKE KENNARD: Just what we've been talking about all series, just playing hard and just staying ready. We have guys that have made big plays all series for us. And it's been like that all year, just next man up, whoever gets called you have to be ready to go. For me they just let me know to stay ready and my mindset was just coming in and playing hard and doing whatever it takes to help us win because that's what it's all about. Doesn't matter how many points you score. Anything, it's just what you can do to help us win. So that was my mindset. That was everybody's mindset tonight and it was a big win for us.

Q. After you missed the first three-pointer to get back into the game, talk about what that thought process is and how good it feels to contribute to this big Game 7? After you missed the first jumper, it looked like it was shot long, and talk about how it feels to contribute in this big Game 7?

LUKE KENNARD: Yeah, you're not going to make every shot, but yeah, staying ready to shoot. The way that they were playing Kawhi, PG, that's why they put me out there was just to space the floor a little bit and just be ready to shoot the ball. It's what I do, and I had some good opportunities in Game 6. It gave me a little momentum coming into tonight and just staying ready and you know keeping it locked and loaded. They trusted me. We trust in each other, so whoever has an open shot, we just want to get a good shot and that's just what we do.

Q. The team had to play the best defense over the season in the Final quarter. How locked in were you guys on defense?

LUKE KENNARD: Very locked in. You know, towards the beginning of the series, we knew we needed to play harder and play how we've been playing all year as a defensive team. There's always room for improvement and we know that. We got better in the series, as the series went on, we got better in doing what we do as a team. We play hard and we communicate. Our communication just went up another level the last few games. Credit to the coaches for making great adjustments and credit to the guys for locking in and trusting the game plan and what we've been doing all year. Credit to everybody for staying locked in and playing hard and communicating all night.

Q. You spoke about saying that you guys got better throughout the course of this series. Do you think it was good for you all to face some adversity early on, and how do you think that will bode as you guys continue through the playoffs having these experiences?

LUKE KENNARD: Yeah, you know, that's what happens. Big-time games like that, you know, big-time series, teams go on runs. You're going to hit adversity. We've hit adversity throughout the year, so our guys have stayed locked in. We stay together. We trust each other and that's what it came down to tonight, just playing hard and just trusting what we have been doing all year and guys making big plays.

We just played hard. We played together and trusted what we've been doing all year, like I had mentioned, and it's a big-time win. Bringing it back home, winning, protecting home floor, that's what tonight was about -- today was about. Felt good. Feels good. Appreciate y'all.