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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: TRAIL BLAZERS vs CLIPPERS

April 17, 2016

Doc Rivers

Los Angeles, California: Game One

Clippers - 115, Trail Blazers - 95

Q. Doc, what was your impression of Blake Griffin tonight? He looked really good out there?
DOC RIVERS: He was great. Assertive, I loved his energy. Yeah, I mean, like I said before the game, I've been surprised with him. His energy, his endurance. Today I thought was the first day that he had great timing as well, so that was good for us.

Q. You held McCollum and Lillard to 30 points, 16 below their season average. Chris Paul seemed to really take it personal and get out their defensive end of the floor. Did you feel like he set the tone? What did you think of your overall defensive effort tonight?
DOC RIVERS: I liked it overall. I thought we made some mistakes that we had to clean up for sure, but overall I liked the game plan. The guys followed it pretty well. You know, it's more than just CP, it's the whole team because when you're guarding those two guys, it's going to take more than a one-on-one defender. Lot of trapping, but more importantly, a lot of rotating and being in the right spot.

Q. You spent about maybe three-and-a-half months forced to play small. How big of an advantage tonight was it to be able to play big? Also secondly, I think you hold them only to five second chance points?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, that was the key. That was big.

Q. Was that just size or again the guards?
DOC RIVERS: That was just everyone together. Size helps obviously when you have those two guys. They have the ability to get way up the floor to help on their guards, and then they have the ability to get back under the glass and rebound.

But I thought our guards did a great job tonight. They didn't get rebounds but they kept balls alive. They hit the balls to our guys a lot. We were even active on the free-throw line tonight which I thought was terrific as well.

Q. They started fouling DeAndre with like five minutes left, you guys were up by 19 by the time they stopped you were up 20. So obviously it didn't work. Were you happy? Did you feel the game was out of hand enough that they shouldn't have done it at that point?
DOC RIVERS: No, listen, everyone does it. I guess it's better to do it when you're ahead than behind. That's actually been proven. But when you're down, you might as well, so I didn't see any problem with it.

Q. You said before the game about guarding Lillard sometimes you just have to let him get his and make sure he's not distributing. You guys did that tonight, only Gerald Henderson scored above 10?
DOC RIVERS: Yeah, we didn't want him to get his though. I was lying about that part, but he did. He's just good. Lillard is who he is because he's a good player. If it was easy to try to slow him or McCollum or any of them down, they wouldn't be as good as they are. We told our guys they're shot makers. They're going to make some shots. We've got to live through it. But what we didn't want is we just don't want mistakes. We played really well, but I did think we made a few mistakes that we could clean up for sure.

Q. What went into your decision to put Luc on C.J.?
DOC RIVERS: He's a defender. Luc's a great defender. Obviously when it's a pick-and-roll we're doing more trapping, but when it was individual defense I think that's where Luc excels and I thought he did a pretty good job.

Q. Doc, following up on Blake, he had a couple of spectacular high-rising shots tonight. What did that tell you about him?
DOC RIVERS: Well, that's a first. I think his first basket was a lob when he first came back. Other than that, he's been below the rim. Tonight he was explosive. I think the time off, the practices, and the fact that now he's been back for a while, I think that all came through tonight.

Q. How did you feel about the bench and their play tonight as well?
DOC RIVERS: They were terrific. I thought the stretch in the third to start the fourth was for us huge because they had cut it to like 14 and then we got it back up to 20. So they did their jobs.

Jamal was really good. Both of them offensively in that one stretch there almost playing, your turn, which was good for us. We're going to get more out of them. Jeff got into foul trouble early. I thought that took his aggressiveness away. That was Wes's first game, and you could see that a little bit. But overall I liked Wes got some rebounds, got involved, so overall I liked our bench a lot.

Q. What's it do for your planning when you see Blake, like you said, have the explosion back and look more like himself and the team seem more like the team that we've seen in the past? How does that help you?
DOC RIVERS: It helps. What I liked is we did it without waiting or trying to get Blake going. Blake got himself going through the flow of what we're doing, and I thought that was important. The beginning of the third I thought was huge for us the way we spread the floor with Blake on the floor. We were able to go downhill, so it's a good thing.

Now we have to wait for tomorrow and see how he feels. I still don't know the exact minutes that you play him so that's something that we're trying to figure out. Thanks, guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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