LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 16, 2021

Terance Mann

Postgame Press Conference

Los Angeles Clippers 119, Utah Jazz 111

Q. Just your thoughts on the resiliency overall as you guys shuffled lineups now that you're in making contributions and great plays. Your overall thoughts on just the versatility and your ability to contribute.

TERANCE MANN: I think all season as a team we had to go through this, guys in and out. Most of the time we had two, three guys down for the latter part of the season leading up to the playoffs. We are just used to it.

We are used to the Next Man Up mentality. When we heard the news about Kawhi, nobody panicked. Everybody is like, we've been here before. We know what to do and we just stuck with what we know from throughout the year and got it done.

With me, I just stayed locked in every game, whether it's coming in at the end of the quarter or playing minutes like I did tonight, I'm just going to be locked in and that's just how I play.

Q. Obviously when you start in Kawhi's place, I assume your thought process is not to be Kawhi, but how are you trying to fill that role?

TERANCE MANN: I'm not trying to fill Kawhi's role at all, man. That's Kawhi Leonard.

But I'm just trying to be me. You know, make things happen on the defensive end and be myself on the offensive end and whatever happens, happens after that. I'm going to play hard like I said before and I'm just going to be me. I'm not trying to fill anybody's shoes. These guys trust me to be me and so that's who I'm going to be.

Q. One thing about Paul, what was his demeanor and what did you see out there today? Obviously spectacular.

TERANCE MANN: You know, his game speaks for itself. He's a great player. All-NBA team player. It's PG we're talking about. He's going to go out there and give you a lot of buckets and give you some stops and he brought it tonight. That's what we expect from him. He's going to continue to lead us that way.

Q. There was a moment in the fourth quarter, you had a corner three and decided you wanted to dunk on Rudy Gobert instead. Obviously you never lost the lead after that but Ty's been encourages guys not to challenge him all the time. What made you want to challenge Rudy in that particular moment?

TERANCE MANN: I was just tired of settling on him. I just wanted to see if I can get him moving. Like he's just the whole time, all he has to do is help and then close out on me and I think I missed four threes tonight that I don't normally do. I want to say I was 1-for-5 from three or something like that.

Yeah, so I was just tired of settling. I just wanted to see what I could do. Got him on my hip; with a guy like that, all defensive player in the league you can't just go up and try to lay it up. You have to go through him. That's just what I try to do.

Q. Quick question. Did you hear from Kawhi when you found out that you were starting in his place, and what was your team's reaction after that dunk?

TERANCE MANN: No, I haven't heard from Kawhi. He's dealing with his stuff. So yeah, that's that.

Team's reaction, everybody was just happy about it. Everybody was talking about it in the locker room after, just encouraging me to stay aggressive for the next game and just continue to do what I've got to do.

Q. With 14 seconds left, Utah was not giving up. What does that say about how tough Game 6 will be?

TERANCE MANN: Yeah, they won't give up ever, down ten, down 20, down five, whatever it is, they are not going to give up. They are the No. 1 team in the NBA. They are fighters. They know how to win obviously because they are the No. 1 team.

Game 6 is going to be tough. They know it's an elimination game for them, so they are just going to come out aggressive. I'm sure stars are going to be very aggressive to start off the game and try to will them to win. We just have to stay locked in and do what we do.

Q. With all the adversity you guys have seen in the postseason, whether it's being down 21 against the Mavs for Game 3, Game 6, this game, 17 threes in the first half; what do you think you've learned about the team so far in these playoffs that you might not have known in the regular season?

TERANCE MANN: You know, nothing too much different. We faced adversity all year. There's been plenty of games where we've been down and we came back. We're just a team that never goes away. We never give up, same as the Jazz. We are two similar teams. We always feel like we can win the game no matter how much we are down or whatever's going on. Everybody in the huddles is always talking about there's plenty of time, we can still win, let's go out there and lock in.

That's just how we are. We've been like that all year.