Clippers preparing for the playoffs nowWhen Doc Rivers addressed the Clippers last month before training camp, he told the team about these “playoff practices” and stressed that every practice and every game this season was a building block for the team it would eventually be when the playoffs rolled around.
“That’s what you’re preparing for,” Rivers said. “The whole season you’re preparing for that. That’s the type of focus you have to have. Little things can be the difference in the game, and we got to get our guys thinking that way. The regular season and the playoffs are single possession games. Every single possession can be the difference in the game, and that’s the urgency of great teams and that’s what we got to get to.”
Most teams start having playoff practices in April, but the Clippers have become accustomed to having those kind of practices since training camp began.
“Our practices are honestly like real games,” Jamal Crawford said. “They’re all playoff-type practices. They’re all very efficient. We get after each other. Doc is always thinking big picture. Even if we run a play and we run it correctly, he wants to run it to the last option and he wants to do it again because he saw something else. He’s always thinking about the situation we’ll be at down the line.”“It’s been good. We can be a lot better,” he said. “We can improve offensively, but in the meantime, we’re still scoring but we can be far more efficient.”
Arash Markazi, ESPN Los Angeles
Clippers finally showing signs of defenseBut something has happened to the Clippers over the past two games defensively, which is to say they’ve actually decided to play some this season.“I have to get comfortable with the fact that we’re scoring a lot of points and we’re scoring them quickly, so that means the other team will have far more opportunities to score,” Rivers said. “They may more score points, but the percentage is what I’m not happy with. It’s just a process that you got to go through. Some get it quick. Some don’t. This team is in between. What I do like is when we do it, you can see it. The more we do it, the more, hopefully, they’ll see it. That’s the only way we’re going to win at the end of the day.”“There’s no turning point,” Rivers said. “If we play like that every night defensively, we may not lose again. Our defense kind of woke up for a second [against Houston]. It would be great if that was the start of it. It just takes time. It was great. Our weak-side defense for the first time this year was spectacular. On film it looked better; everybody was down in their stance. Usually when I’m watching it, we have three guys standing straight up and two guys down. Guys were pointing early to the plays before they were happening. It just takes a great amount of intensity and a great amount of focus. I’m hoping it builds, but I don’t think we have it yet.”Developing a consistently good defense built on trust doesn’t happen overnight and isn’t set after just two games, but for the first time this season, the Clippers are starting to play like the defensive team they hoped they would be coming out of training camp.
“It’s hard,” Rivers said. “It’s easy to play individual defense. It’s hard to play team defense because it requires trust and you have to build it.”
Arash Markazi, ESPN Los Angeles
