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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND TWO: CLIPPERS v THUNDERMay 15, 2014Doc RiversLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Six Thunder – 104 COACH RIVERS: I'd like to congratulate Scottie Brooks and Oklahoma City. I thought they did a terrific job throughout this series. Thought they made shots, big shots down the stretch of a lot of games. You just have to give them credit. It was a very close series. I thought the teams were very evenly matched. You know, they stepped up and won two very good games, very winnable games by us. On our end, we've gone through a lot of stuff over the last three or four weeks. I don't think that was why we didn't win. I don't think we should use that as an excuse. I thought, you know, for us, we're a team in process. I believe we were good enough to win it this year. Oklahoma City told us we were not. So we have to do more. I think this was a great learning tool for us, even all the stuff. I thought obviously it's nothing that anybody wants to go through, nothing I want to go through. Overall I thought our fan base and I thought the city and I thought our guys really hung in there. Very proud of them. The locker room was not very good after the game, in a very sad way. You know, just watching our guys, it just felt like all this stuff that they've gone through, they kind of released all their emotions. That was tough. That was tough to see for me as one of their leaders. Wish I could have done more for them. So let's open it up to questions. Q. Considering the uncertainty of the future, how different was what you had to say to those guys tonight compared to other situations? COACH RIVERS: Not different at all. I told them we were going to win it together. It was my job to try to make us better. But we have a great core. I told them we're going to have our day. This is not the end; this is the beginning for us. Q. Reading into that, does that mean you will be back? COACH RIVERS: Like I've said before, I'm under contract. I have no plans of going anywhere, as far as I know. Q. You go into the fourth quarter tied. What happened in the final 12 minutes? COACH RIVERS: We missed a lot of shots. They made a lot of shots. The old adage it's a make/miss league, that came true tonight. We lost Durant three times which shouldn't have happened, but it did. I personally thought at halftime we never got our energy back. I don't think it was the fourth quarter. To me in the fourth quarter they had cut the lead. It was the third quarter to me that changed the game. Even the second half of the second quarter, they got back into the game. I thought we came out with a lot of emotion to start the game. Didn't know if I really liked it, to be honest. You know, I turned to one of my coaches and said, I don't know if I liking this because we better not hit a wall. It felt like towards the end of the second quarter we never got our energy back to the way we played for the first quarter and a half. We tried. That's all you can do. Q. If Serge Ibaka is healthy, is Oklahoma City good enough to win it, it wouldn't be a surprise to you at all? COACH RIVERS: Yeah, I thought the west is good enough to win it. All eight teams. I'm not joking. Not taking anything away from the east teams. Miami is the champion until somebody beats them, all right? They're going to be a tough out. Indiana to me is going to be hard for Miami. I think people have been on them before the year, they wanted home court in the Eastern Conference Finals, they have it. But I just think the two teams in the west are very good. Pop and what he's done with his team, they basically got off the mat. They had a winnable game in Game 6, lost it, they've recovered. They're better, they're healthy. I personally think they're on a mission. But I think without Serge, they need Serge obviously, Oklahoma, they have the guy named Durant and Westbrook, it gives them a fighting chance. Q. You talk about emotions and Chris Paul. How do you feel for him? COACH RIVERS: It's just this time, as far as I'm concerned. I don't look at another time for him. This is his first time. I don't look at it as another time for them. Got out of the first round, advanced. We had a chance in this series clearly. I just feel awful for him. Just point‑blank, I do. He's the spirit of our team. Right now his spirit is broken. He's going to have all summer to work and get ready for next year, you know. But he'll be back. He'll be ready. He'll be better next year. He knows me now. He knows our system now. And I think all our guys do. So he'll be off and running. He has a great family. He has great teammates. So there's a lot of people around him. I just feel bad for him because he's the guy that always puts everything on his shoulders, and I'm sure he will this summer. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RIVERS: Yeah, he took it hard. He took it very hard. Q. Throughout this entire saga, I've talked to many analysts, former players, coaches, they said that you were the right coach to carry the team through this brouhaha. What do you make about that? COACH RIVERS: I've said this before, and I'm not trying to show humility or anything like that. I think any coach in this system would have been the right coach, the right man. I just think you had to be. It's not like we had a choice in it. None of us was chosen for this. None of us signed on for this. But this is what happened. The way I looked at it, it was my job to do everything that I thought was right. I guarantee I made a lot of mistakes in this, as well. I still wish I could have protected the guys more. There was a lot of stuff. Q. How tough was it with frustration late in the game? COACH RIVERS: Just keep fighting. No victims. I kept telling our guys, Don't worry. One timeout they were complaining about calls. Listen, I've only won once. I got there another time. Both times, if I've learned anything, it's hard to win. It's just hard. It is. Everything has to go right. A lot of stuff went wrong for us throughout this, and we just kept going. So that's the lesson for us. You have to embrace how hard it is. You have to actually enjoy how hard it is. And whoever wins it is going to say that. For us, I thought that was growth for us at least. I think they understood. I don't know if we got that until the playoffs started. That's why when I told the guys before, You grow during the playoffs. Don't think you don't grow and come together. I think we start coming together, time ran out. It did. I felt like we were really close to, you know‑‑ you hear like coaches say, like I was around CoachK a lot, Duke basketball. You know exactly what Duke basketball is because he's been there forever. Early in the year I heard 'Clipper basketball,' I was like, What the hell is that? We're trying to figure out what that is. I thought during this playoff series, we start figuring out exactly like what Clipper basketball is and will be. I just kept thinking, Man, if we can get through a couple more games, we're there. You can feel it. And time ran out. That's the tough part. Q. In the last couple hours it's come out through Mr. Sterling's attorney he doesn't intend to pay the two‑and‑a‑half‑million‑dollar fine. COACH RIVERS: I'm not paying my $25,000 either (laughter). Q. He's implied the league should prepare itself for a legal battle. If this is a prolonged issue, what is your reaction to that? How is that going to impact your ability to rebuild this roster in the off‑season, recruit people to come here and play? COACH RIVERS: I don't know is the answer on all of the above. I think I'm prepared for somewhat of a messy summer, mentally at least. I just think it's going that way. I have a ton of faith in our league that we'll try to get it straight. But we'll see. As far as how it affects us in bringing others in, I don't even know the answer to that. I just have a lot of faith. We don't have to do a lot. That's the good news. Our roster is pretty good. So that's like a saving grace for us this summer. Thank gosh we don't have six or seven free agents. We don't have that, so I think that helps. But we'll see how it goes. I'll see how it goes. Q. Do you feel like the Sterling saga dragged on your team mentally tonight? COACH RIVERS: I think a lot of stuff, yeah. You know, I know I'm tired. I can tell you that. I'm going to go somewhere and, first of all, lose some weight. I feel like I gained 40 pounds in this thing. You know, that's what I was saying earlier. That's what I was really trying to do throughout this, is try to like bridge, felt like I had to try to protect our guys. The playoffs are hard enough without any of this stuff, so... But I want to give the respect to like Oklahoma. They beat us, you know. I don't want us to use‑‑ we just can't be that. Sure, it played a part, somewhat. It had to, all right? But Oklahoma beat us fair and square. We just have to learn from that. I think all of us will learn from all of this, you know, so... Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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