Doc Rivers may have to blame himself for whatever the Clippers try to throw on his team as they attempt to take the Philadelphia 76ers to just their third loss in their past 13 games.
After all, it was his guard Tyronn Lue who directed his former team to Friday’s game in Philadelphia – the first meeting this season between the Clippers and the 76ers and the third since Rivers’ seven-year tenure with the team ended after the second game collapsed in the knockout stages of the 2020 Western Conference.
To hear Lue tell it via Zoom, it’s likely he wouldn’t have coached without Rivers, who was his coach when he first played for the Orlando Magic.
“In 2003, when I was playing for him in Orlando, he just said when I finished playing I could go see the coach with him,” Lue recalls before tipoff Friday. “I said no! I can’t deal with people like me every day. ‘
“But in 2009, when I was done playing and I called him and he and Danny Ainge gave me a chance (in Boston) to get to where I am today, so I will always know. thanks to those people. two boys for that. ”
Despite that history, no coach said he viewed Friday’s meeting as particularly “special” or “weird.”
“I’m not going to say anything special or anything – just the special part is being able to see him,” Lue said.
In agreeing to last season’s meetings, the divided teams, and the ever-changing nature of NBA teams, Rivers told reporters: “No, I don’t know if it’s weird anymore. Last year we played with them a couple of times and half of the people I don’t coach were on that team – probably more than half other than PG, Kawhi and Terance, Zu. ”
Together with Marcus Morris Sr. and Amir Coffey, with only Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Terance Mann and Ivica Zubac remaining from Rivers’ tenure – and only Mann, Zubac and Morris (the Philadelphia native who returned and joined the starting lineup after missing time) Wednesday’s overtime lost in Denver for personal reasons) was at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday.
Leonard has missed the entire season to recover from a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament and the Clippers announced at Christmas that All-Star teammate Paul George will be out indefinitely with his collateral ligament torn. at the right elbow.
Nicolas Batum has also returned to the starting lineup after missing Wednesday’s game during COVID-19 health and safety protocols – the result of a fruitless test.
From afar, Rivers — the team that the Clippers overcame 356-208 and reached the knockout stages just one of his tracks, although they never made it past the second round — were impressed with the development of the team. Zubac and Mann, the coach said.
Of Zubac, Rivers raved: “He’s been great to watch honestly, he’s just getting better and better and his hands are. I remember when we got him the first time he didn’t play at the pace we wanted – and I won’t say the term we used, but then you remember he injured his hand and he couldn’t catch him, and when we got him, we thought he had these amazing hands.
“Then he comes back next year and is taking everything… and his attacks are incredible, and his passing has really improved as well. It’s enough just to see him play well.”
As for Mann, the third-year versatile winger who has been positioned as a point guard for most of his rookie season under Rivers: “You can see it coming, you real possibility,” Rivers said.
“First when we got him, his shot was rough and now he shoots with confidence and I told Dan Burke today, our defensive coordinator, that Terance has done it. leads the summer league in bounces in a guard spot. He has invisible things that a lot of guards don’t have and then he has a body and he has dimensions. ”
https://www.sbsun.com/2022/01/21/new-look-clippers-clash-with-former-coach-doc-rivers-again/ New look Clippers clash with old coach Doc Rivers – San Bernardino Sun
