LA CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 11, 2023

Tyronn Lue

Press Conference

Q. We talked last week a little bit about having this little break here, which you didn't have before the play-in tournament. Do you divide days up into what you want to go over? How do these four or five days of practice work for you?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, you divide up how you want to go through it. Today will be more of a defensive day. Understanding what we want to do defensively, so you can have four or five days prepping defensively because they're a tough team. They have a lot of different weapons. Monty has a great system. So the most important thing right now is on the defensive end.

Q. When you look at this team overall and this coaching, is it hard maybe not to react to something you may see in Game 1 or 2 right away? How do you coach that?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, we've just got to see how it goes. I think just seeing how a team tries to attack on both ends, who they try to attack defensively and how they try to attack us offensively. You put a lot of prep into just one game because once the first game is over, things are going to change.

But you've got to prepare for it, and so our biggest thing, just want to see the first game and see how they try to attack us, and then just kind of go from there.

Q. Because of how much time you have to prepare, in a weird way, is overpreparation, could that be a thing in some regard?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, it could be. Just kind of boring when you've got five days to go over the same thing over and over again, but it's the Playoffs, so the biggest thing is preparation, and then it's adjustments and understanding what you've got to do after the first game, first quarter, first half, whatever. You've got to make adjustments to put your team in the best position to win.

Q. With PG out, obviously Kawhi is probably going to see a crowd pretty often. Does that impact the way that you choose to deploy him defensively with the amount of offensive assignments that he's going to take on with potentially also having to take the KD assignment defensively?

TYRONN LUE: I can't remember.

Q. Who mimics KD when you're studying up for Phoenix?

TYRONN LUE: I thought about doing it, but yeah -- I thought about doing it, but I'm going to probably let Brandon Boston, a couple different guys. But who can really be KD?

Q. What do you make of the team's mindset going into this where Zu on Sunday is saying you still feel like you're dangerous but you know that it's sometimes hard for everything to work in concert with each other with the defense, with the slow starts. How do you feel like you guys are confidence-wise to making it happen in this series?

TYRONN LUE: I feel confident.

Q. Do you sense that from Kawhi on down, from the roster?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, we put ourselves in a great position. I know we're a tough team, but just getting to the Playoffs, we saw last year just fighting for our lives trying to get in the play-in and then we lose two games and you go home early.

We have a great opportunity. We know it's a great team and great coach in Monty Williams, but we're up for the challenge. We're in the Playoffs, and it's about being locked in. I think the biggest thing for our team is just taking away the mental mistakes, the game plan mistakes we've got to be better with that because they'll make you pay every single time.

We've got to be sharper what we're doing defensively, and then offensively just reading how they're going to play us, and we'll be able to understand that once the game starts.

Q. They've only played eight games together, that trio, but what can you take away from those games?

TYRONN LUE: Well, their iso I think went up about 60 percent, just isolating the basketball because KD is probably one of the best one-on-one players we've ever seen in this game, and what a great coach does is they kind of change their offense to fit around their team, and when you acquire a guy like KD you've got to make sure that you use him to his advantage, and they have been.

That's what Monty has done. Their iso has gone up about 60 percent, but they're super, super efficient in those isos.

Like I said, they've only played eight games, but KD has been around. He's been seeing how they play, what they need to do. He knows the offense because he's been around a long enough time. He just happened to get hurt. But it's going to be a tough challenge.

Q. The year you were in the Finals you coached against KD. Is there anything you can learn about playing against KD that you can apply to this kind of series?

TYRONN LUE: I don't think so. I think it's different. The players are different, the coaching style is different. I wouldn't really be able to take anything away from the Golden State series.

Q. Was he the hardest guy you've had to try to stop in a playoff series?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I think --

Q. As good as Steph is.

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I think you go into a series and just -- like I said, they only played eight games, but you go into a series and try to take away what a team does really good, what they've done all season long; they're going to try to beat you a different way. It's kind of tough because they've been on movement, CP pick-and-rolls, but now adding KD, now they're more isos and they play a little different now. Just trying to take away what a team does best, that's your main focus, and then trying to make them beat you a different way. When they show they can do that, then you've got to adjust and do something different.

KD on any team gives you problems no matter who it is, so we've just got to be locked in and ready to go.

Q. You look at the fact that the first quarter of the season y'all were a top-5 defense and there have been things that happened over the course of the year, but when you look at how the season started, do you take anything from that or do you feel like that was so far ago that you can't look at that as any kind of foundation?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I think just having our main principles, our main foundation, we definitely have to get back to that. I think we've got to be the more physical team because if we allow those guys to run around and get to their spots, with Book, he's shooting 50-something percent from mid-range, KD is shooting almost 60 percent, CP is shooting 50 percent. So we've just got to be physical. We know Ayton killed us on the glass, offensive rebounds and things like that. So we've just got to be physical. I think that's going to help our defense, just being physical, being into bodies, not let those guys move around and roam freely, so that's got to be our mindset going into Game 1.