LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 16, 2021

Rudy Gobert

Postgame Press Conference

Los Angeles Clippers - 119, Utah Jazz - 111

Q. So you guys obviously got off to that incredible offensive start, but it seemed like the defensive rotations were kind of a problem all along. Can you take us through what went wrong on that end?

RUDY GOBERT: I didn't feel like we were playing with a sense of urgency at the beginning of the game. Obviously we were doing great job making shots and scoring, and in a way I wish we would have missed shots so maybe we would have thought that we need to play some defense to win this game. We just didn't. We turned it up defensively throughout the course of the game, but when a team like this gets comfortable, it's tough to -- I mean you put yourself in a position where it can go either way, and it went their way tonight.

There was no urgency at the beginning of the game defensively. The communication in transition wasn't there and every single one of their players is going at us.

And on the other side, it's a different story. I feel like they just played more physical than we did.

Q. What's the mood of the team right now heading into Game 6?

RUDY GOBERT: I mean, we got to win. We got to get out there and do anything we can to put ourself in a position to win the game. We know that we're going to need a better collective effort than we had tonight and hopefully we get more urgency the next game because now if we lose we're going home, so you can't get more urgency than that. So just got to get our mind right and just get ready to get a win over there and see what happens.

Q. Why do you think the urgency wasn't there?

RUDY GOBERT: I think many reasons. Maybe -- I don't know. I don't know. I just felt like maybe the fatigue, maybe the fact that Kawhi didn't play. It could be many things. I just felt like we -- you know, we know that we have to be a dominant defensive team in order to win and it starts with me. There's a lot of times when guys went at me and I didn't stop them. So it starts with me, and then, as a team. I just feel like our communication wasn't there early on. The urgency wasn't there.

So it's, I think it's just a collective mindset. We're going to watch film and see what really happened. But that's what I felt on the court. I felt like early on we were trading baskets and because we had the five-point, 10-point lead, it was okay, but as soon as they turned up the level defensively and as soon as we stopped making those threes, they kept attacking us, getting to the line and getting to the rim, and we just, it was hard for us to stay afloat.

Q. How will you prepare the next game? You talk about the urgency, but how will you find this emergency state of mind?

RUDY GOBERT: It's about going out there, play as a team and play with effort, play with great communication, and play as a team offensively. I think if we do those three things, we're going to be in a great position to win this game.

I mean, obviously, when we made the shots, it's great, but when we don't make the shots, we got to understand that in the playoffs we're not going to always make the shots, so we have to have our defensive mindset and our physicality on from the start of the game. Then when the shots fall, usually it goes together, when we play defense, we are able to get out in transition, and we get wide open shots, and they found them for some reason. But it obviously starts with us, communication and the defensive mindset.

Q. What are the Clippers doing to get you away from the spots that you guys want to get to on offense and taking away some of those shots that you've been getting all season, especially in that third quarter? What were they doing to take that away from you?

RUDY GOBERT: I mean, I'm going to have to watch film, but it does feel like we had a lot of good ones, a lot of good shots that we had that we didn't make or that were bouncing in and out. And then there was a few times when I feel like we should attack the rim or move the ball a little more and we don't.

So it's a great learning experience, regardless, for us and it can't always be perfect, but it's all about keep playing, try to play the right way for the majority of the game, and keep moving the ball, and when we have done that, we saw that it was really hard for them to guard us, and we were getting to the line, getting, finding our bigs, because especially when they play small, and finding the threes. It's pretty much breaking them down when we play the right way. So it takes a lot of mental toughness to keep playing the right way when they kind of speed us up a little bit, but I think we can do it.

Q. Now that Game 6 is win or go home game for you how important is the approach in the most important game of your season?

RUDY GOBERT: Like I just said, it's about coming with a mentality of it's win or go home for us, so we're going to do anything that we can to play the best basketball that we can play, play as a team, play defense, communicate, and see what happens.

I think when we focus on those things, everything else kind of falls into place, and it's been really hard for them to guard us when we play with force and we play that way, and then we're able to set our defense. And when we play half court defense, it's a lot harder for them too. So it's all connected.

You got to also give them credit. I mean, they made a lot of shots tonight and a lot of them were on easy shots, so it's, hopefully we can make at that little harder for them next game and see what happens.

Q. Obviously Donovan's not playing at a hundred percent right now, and tonight he really seemed to kind of struggle moving, not moving very fluidly. As teammates, what do you guys do to not only support him kind of just emotionally throughout the game, but also maybe take some of the pressure off of him?

RUDY GOBERT: I mean, it takes team effort. We all try to make sure we are there for one another. We need to be there for one another, defensively and offensively, and obviously Donovan's playing with through injury, some other guys playing through some other stuff, so it's the playoffs and at the same time we got to make sure we try to give everything we got, we have. It's better to have Donovan that's 90 percent than to have no Donovan at the end of the day, so it's really on the whole team to give, try to give everything they have and try to help each other out and see what happens.