Doc Rivers Media Availability | 12.09.25

Doc Rivers Media Availability | 12.09.25

I guess that’s injury report. Uh, who is unable to bring? Uh, everybody other than Giannis and AJ Green. So, no, I think I don’t I didn’t know I had to do the to anymore, but yeah. Or something else, but go ahead. Um, I So, I I know you talked a little bit about a breath and a reset and being able to practice. Um, I mean, I guess what were the two off days or what what was the vibe? What was the mood I guess for the coaching staff for for the guys coming back in tonight after just getting back to some basics uh defensively uh starting there, you know, and then some of our offensive spacing stuff. So that I thought, you know, you have slippage during the season. I thought we had a good chance of working on it today. Uh we’ll work on it again tomorrow just to get more organized. Um that’s about it. I mean, how import I don’t want to say difficult, but I mean Jericho is not really a three-point shooter. Kyle has you had him in a different kind of role earlier in the year. You’re talking about spacing. Is that different stuff because you’re now going forward with with different guys. Yeah, I mean that’s but that’s what you have during the regular season. You know, your starting five doesn’t play a lot together. You have injuries during the season and you have to make adjustments and that’s what we’re doing. I know we talked a lot at the start of the year about Miles. As you guys are sitting here kind of reflecting or thinking about where it is at the point of the season. Yeah. How do you feel like it’s gone? I think it’s gone okay. Not great yet. I think Miles is going to be way better later than he is now. You know, he’s been one place for 10 years. You know, it’s just going to take a minute. You know, he still talks about that. Uh yet he’s still uh very positive in the locker room. He’s been great around the guys, you know. Uh, and then the plus minus numbers are all pluses when he’s on the floor. So, whatever he’s doing, he’s doing something good for our team. Uh, and and that’s a good thing. Can you I mean, I know he’s not a hasn’t typically been a run offense through guy, but he’s one of your more skilled offensive players. You’re talking about scoring or having a hard time scoring. Is that something in this few days of practice you can lean into? because at times like that Chicago game, that Miami game where he was a little more involved with different things. Who are you talking about? Oh, Miles. Yeah. Yeah. I think it depends on um the team and how they’re they’re guarding them, you know. Uh we want them more involved, but we want we want them to get them the right shots. We got to move the ball better, you know, bottom line. And that that comes from spacing. He said a couple games ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and and we told him like early on he was popping only, you know, and now he’s rolling and popping, mixing it up. Uh part of our offense started him low, bringing him up high. So there’s a lot of ways to get him down there. How do you feel like just the team in general just know that Giannis isn’t going to be here for I think this these two days helps, you know, we kind of gather yourself. Um you know, we’re coming out playing a team that’s on fire uh in Boston, but the the days will help us. Uh the practices will help us for sure. I know that first time when he came back he said he felt like maybe Yeah. Yeah. By winning a game would help. Uh but days like today help it. It it really does cuz when you’re getting you know game after game every other night you’re playing and you it’s almost like you can’t catch yourself. Uh this is this allows you to. I thought our spirit today was phenomenal in the gym. uh you know we’ll just go to Detroit but over the year you’ve identified and the guys have identified when the team struggles the issues physicality turns whatever uh regarding the following and some of these things you’ve said hey we’ve gone through this we’ve looked at where or how is there the disconnect where if you’re going through well just because I mean I think you’ve been around this a long time right like just because we tell them over and over again that mean they’re just me you know sometimes it takes time sometimes you know it’s the same type of fouls. Uh so there’s no disconnect there. The guys just aren’t doing it as well as we’d like them. Uh you know, right now, but it’s not like they don’t they want to foul like they’re working on it. Uh you know, today we did a lot of one-on-one defensive stuff to try to get them better at uh keeping their hands off of guys. Um you know, um they’re also young, you know, like Paul George got three or four fouls on our young guys putting their hands up. So that’s part of it too and and that’s the best way to learn is by going through it. Uh speaking of young guys, Ryan is one of the younger guys. Yeah. Roster. What do you feel like this kind of little bit of break to help? Uh it’s probably good because he’s he’s probably had the most on his plate if you go by all the work and and um you know really trying to simplify things for him offensively because that’s where you know his defense has not wavered other than getting in foul trouble a couple of games. Uh but his offense like he’s almost stuck at times now and you know trying to unstick him and getting him back to you know taking the right shots you know uh moving the ball when he should move the ball instead of trying to score you know um I think we got that message pretty clear today you had a stretch of seven games in 11 days you now have two games in 11 days yeah I’ll take that talk about competitive spirit just you know trying to get this team back on how how valuable I think it’s huge And I don’t even think it’s necessarily like I’m I mean I know most of you guys are focused on what’s going on now. I’m looking at this long term like how this could help us. Things we can add, things that we put in that we like that we can make better. Things that we put in we didn’t like that we can take out. So obviously we want to win the next two games, right? But this is more about not only that, but moving forward for us. I mean I wish you know Giannis could be part of this but it is what it is. Maybe off that um you talked about you’ve been pretty honest about the margins right how can you expand those like is is this a point where you can expand those margins or is it one of well the the only margins we can expand the two that we well we have to get better at we have to try to keep following less. We have to stop turning the ball over. All right that’s that’s a huge margin error for us. All right. And then the rebounding margin. So, those are the three areas. Uh we can force more turnovers, but we’ve been so injured, it’s hard to have the ball pressure in the intensity defensively that you want. Maybe this break will start increasing our our ball pressure more. We we all know the calendar like next week, you know, more roster options open around the league. Is that something where you’re you and John are talking about like, hey, you know, maybe the personnel changes need to be made in order to No, I mean, we talk every day and I’m not going to sit here and tell you what we’re talking about, but uh we’re not in a panic here. We’re not saying, “Oh my god, we need to change our team or anything like that. You can be We’re not We’re not at all.” Uh with Cruz, he’s a guy that’s obviously scored like 20 points per game. That’s not something you guys are asking him to do. No, but it’s a overall it’s efficient. as long this is the most efficient offensive season of his career and we’ve taken the in between shots out. Um it’s literally that simple, you know. So he’s uh to the basket and to uh and the three-point line. Um we want more corner threes than break threes. So that’s the next area we want to actually take out. Um and then finishing at the basket like if he can finish there, his numbers will really go up high because he’s getting there. Uh now he’s got to finish. Sque the other night you were asked about the zone and it’s like you know we are getting better at it and it is it is a secret weapon but we want it to be a secret weapon like it doesn’t want to be the thing no we want to be a man team uh that plays zone not a zone team that plays man. Uh Detroit is different because we feel like zone is very good against them. Um whoever played them the game before played zone most of the night. So that’s just a different animal and two of our last three games have been against Detroit. So, um, from a man perspective, what do you feel like lacking or Well, we’re not guarding the ball well. It’s not It’s not that simple. We got to keep the ball in front of us and when you don’t, uh, your bigs are helping. They’re getting offensive rebounds. You’re fouling. Uh, we have to do a better job of keeping the ball in front. Go back to that news. AJ, do you think there’s a chance he plays on those? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I don’t know if he will. U, but you said there’s a chance, right? Yeah. So, uh, I think there’s a chance with the on ball. You had mentioned that in Detroit, too, like, hey, if the offense is struggling, we need to be a certain kind of defensive team. Um, you know, the guys have talked about we don’t really know who we are yet. Some of it’s been lineups and etc. It’s not late, but it’s not early yet either in the season. See, I just disagree with that. Like, when you when you have a team where your main guys miss this many games, like how are you going to have an identity yet, you know? So, is that a style of play though? Like if they Yeah. Yeah. But they see it too though. They know it too. So, it’s I don’t think one guy in our locker room Yeah. We do need to establish our identity. Well, we’re not going to have an identity without your best player. You’re not going to create that without your best player. It’s just not going to happen, you know? So, yeah, I I agree with you, but I don’t look at it like now if Giannis and all of our in school have been here all year and we haven’t figured out how we wanted to play, that would be an issue. All right. Um, I think Giannis and Scoot have played two games. Uh, and one of those games, one of them got hurt. So, uh, and just we not had a stretch where we had a group healthy. Uh, we’re going to have that stretch at some point. I hope with Boston kind of what has maybe surprised you about or if anything? Um, not much. You know, I I’ve said it before the year people are sleeping on Boston. you know, um they still got a guy named White and Brown and Pritchard. Uh they have a lot of guys, you know, uh that have won finals and know how to play together. So, they had the automatic chemistry thing built. I thought they started out slow, but they’re they’re playing great basketball right now. So, uh I haven’t watched them yet just from, you know, watching them just like you guys have. Uh I’ll start doing that tonight.

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