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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND TWO: CLIPPERS v ROCKETSMay 14, 2015Doc RiversLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Six Rockets – 119 Q. Doc, you've always been brutally honest in describing your team's performance. In the fourth quarter, particularly, would you say that your team just collapsed? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we did. You know, I thought we were trying to run the clock out, and we stopped playing. They kept playing, and then once it got to eight, you could just feel it. We wasted a couple timeouts with loose ball stuff, so I knew I only had two, I had to try to conserve those. What could have went wrong went wrong. We did get some great shots, and I think we missed wide‑open threes, lay‑ups, you know, dunks, and each miss, I thought the pressure mounted, honestly. It happens, but it's hard to happen when you have a lead like that. Q. You guys had a 19‑point lead with about three minutes left in the third and then you were outscored, by my count in my head, 51‑20 at that point. DOC RIVERS: Yeah. Q. Do you think maybe your team thought that we've got this game in the bag? DOC RIVERS: No, I thought they tried to run the game out. I don't think they thought that they had the game in the bag. I thought they thought, we walk the ball up the floor. I thought we got very tentative offensively, very few people even wanted to shoot in stretches, and you know, it happens. But it's awful to watch. It's awful for our team, and we have to figure out in the next 48 hours how to get them back, because we can't get this one back. We gave this one away. There's no doubt about that, all right. But it's still 3‑3 and we have a Game 7. Q. How tough is that to sell to a room that‑‑ DOC RIVERS: It's not that hard. It's hard today. It'll be hard probably tomorrow, but by the time we lace it up, they'll be ready to play. You have no choice. Q. You've talked about the mental toughness of this group a lot. Is this just kind of the ultimate test? DOC RIVERS: Yeah, it is. I mean, honestly, we played so well for three quarters, and then we played‑‑ when you give up 40 points‑‑ forget the offense. When you give up 40 points, you've stopped playing, clearly. And when you don't score but 15, with the way we score, those aren't good, either. Having said that, like I said earlier, there's nothing we can do about it now. Hopefully we can learn something from this and get them ready for Sunday. They'll be ready. It's just going to take a little while. Q. Doc, after Chris made that field goal with two seconds left, you said a little bit of that might be pressure, he got some good shots, but how much of that was‑‑ DOC RIVERS: Give them credit, their defense was pretty good. But we had good looks. We just stopped playing. I haven't seen the film, but that's what it felt like, that's what it looked like. We got the ball I thought to people in the right spots, places we've got it all game, and we just didn't‑‑ we came up empty. Q. You've talked about how the team needs to regroup. Did you say anything tonight or‑‑ DOC RIVERS: No, what can you say tonight that they hear you? I did say stuff, but I guarantee you they have no idea what I said. When you lose a game like this, you're pretty down. You pretty much want to go home, and I'm sure that's what they're going to do. Q. You guys have had problems closing out games, Game 5, obviously tonight. What are some of the things that concern you that can get you back over the hump and get you winning Game 7? DOC RIVERS: Well, we just have to, and I actually think we've closed out more than we've given up to be honest, but tonight we clearly didn't do that. We'll watch the film and see what we need to do. Q. Was there a point or a play where you start thinking, hey, this is starting to turn in the wrong direction? DOC RIVERS: Oh, early for me, honestly. I would say almost the beginning of the fourth. I just didn't like the way we were playing. You could see it. Hell, I thought‑‑ I think it was either Jamal or Austin got a three‑point play. That was our last basket for like four minutes and then CP scored and that was the next‑‑ that was how it felt. And our baskets were guys like‑‑ I think it was Austin just decided no one is doing anything, I'm just going to attack. That's what we actually needed.  We didn't have enough of that down the stretch. Q. Did you feel like you guys had a chance early in the game, too, to maybe stretch out a lead bigger, especially in that first quarter? DOC RIVERS: No, it's a first quarter, gang. Easy to say. But they probably thought they had a chance to be in the lead at halftime. I don't think so, no. Q. You mentioned there's not much you can say that they would probably hear tonight. What do you have planned in terms of schedule leading up to Sunday? DOC RIVERS: We'll watch film tomorrow. Not a lot. We probably could put it on at the third or we may choose to watch the first three and ignore the fourth. Who knows what we're going to do yet. We'll figure that out. Q. I know a lot of us here are trying to describe what it was like to experience that. What was it like in the locker room? Were they sad, angry, stunned? DOC RIVERS: All of the above. I think there's probably a plethora of emotions when something like this happens. You know, I felt bad for them, honestly, because they want it so bad, and sometimes you want stuff so bad that you can't get it because you're in your own way, and I thought we clearly got in our own way tonight. And again, it's not because they don't want it. They do.  And they want it so much that we couldn't think straight. You know, that's my job. I've got to try to get them through it, and I see that for sure. Q. J.J. has been a reliable source of instant offense a lot this season. He's 7 of 25 in his last two games. How much has that affected the offense? DOC RIVERS: It does, but you know, listen, we had 100 points with eight minutes left or whatever, so our offense was pretty good tonight. We just gave up 119. I don't know how we're talking about offense right now. To me that's where we lost the game was they scored 40 points in the fourth quarter on things that shouldn't happen. And so to me, that's where we have to get better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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