LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 14, 2021

Quin Snyder

Jazz Postgame Press Conference

Clippers - 118, Jazz - 104

Q. The TNT cameras caught you early telling the players that they were in their own heads on offense and everything would be okay if you could just string together some stops defensively. What did you feel like was kind of the main issue on that end of the court, especially early on?

COACH SNYDER: I think really one of the first couple of possessions we actually had some good defensive possessions, but we gave up second-chance points. We gave up a couple of offensive rebounds, which I think they're deflating. And then a lot of times when you're struggling on offense, I've said this for our team, if we can get stops it allows us to find some rhythm in transition.

We were playing hard. We were competing. We just weren't playing -- I'd say we weren't playing smart in that we weren't connected. And that showed with the 13-point first quarter that we were trying to attack, but we weren't attacking as much -- we weren't putting ourselves in situations where we could have success, I think.

Again, defense can cover up for that to an extent and allow you to sputter a little bit offensively. But in this case we were giving up baskets, too, and suddenly you've got a big deficit.

I liked the fact that we continued to compete. I think obviously you don't want to take a loss like this, but there's Game 5. And to the extent that we have to take some things that we did do well as the game progressed and try to replicate them, and then look at things like giving a team 38 free throws and the discipline that we have in that situation and making sure we're getting back and not giving up offensive rebounds, because it's hard to overcome those things. You almost have to be perfect on the other end, and we weren't that either.

Q. You're mentioning the offensive rebounds. What do you think was the biggest breakdown and the reason that the Clippers were able to kind of get their hands on those?

COACH SNYDER: Well, you know, defensive rebounding is usually a collective effort, a combination of just an initial awareness, urgency. I didn't think we were locked in on that.

And there's different types of rebounds, particularly a lot of them they were chasing down, we're going to the boards instead of going back to a body and essentially trying to make sure that they don't get it, as opposed to any one of us getting the ball. So to look at the possessions, I'm sure there's a bunch of different things that happened whether we got caught in the rotation or something along those lines.

But the biggest thing is I think those plays are really deflating, when you basically have gotten a stop and the team misses, and then you allow them to get another shot, usually those second shots are either around the rim or they end up being clean looks and usually from 3. That's what happened.

Q. Rudy only got to 32 minutes tonight and some of that was definitely due to foul trouble. I'm curious, he's played generally fewer minutes than other stars have maybe on other teams in this year's playoffs. Do you feel there's a minute target you're trying to get to with Rudy, or how are you approaching his minutes in these playoffs?

COACH SNYDER: Rudy can be dominant when he's out there. He fouled out of one game this year. It happened to be in the playoffs. He's in foul trouble tonight. And a couple of the games where we've pulled people out, he hasn't got minutes at the back end of a game.

So, no one has to kind of persuade me to play Rudy. We know how good he is and how much we need him. So, as I said, the foul trouble, it's something that hurts us to not have him out there. And we'd like to extend him and we do and we'll continue to. Every game has a different flow to it. But obviously Rudy is someone that we need on the floor.