LOS ANGELES – The LA Clippers are continuing to prepare for the scrimmage games with whoever they have available, not focusing on the guys who aren't in Orlando yet. Head coach Doc Rivers again declined to address who the Clippers were still waiting on to arrive in the bubble.
“There's nothing you can do about it so I don't have a lot of concern about it,” Rivers told members of the media on Friday. “As far as guys that have showed up and not showed up, we don't talk about that, so we're going to continue to not talk about it.”
While they refused to publicly disclose the information, it's become increasingly clear that Ivica Zubac, Marcus Morris, and Landry Shamet are the players the Clippers are without so far. Shamet reported contracted the coronavirus and has been quarantining back home in Los Angeles. Zubac and Morris' absences, however, are still without explanation.
Wednesday's opening night of scrimmage games will feature the Clippers and Orlando Magic. For Rivers, that game is essentially a preseason game succeeding training camp.
“I think we should call them preseason games,” Rivers said. “Because other than the first game really where the minutes structure may be a little different, we have refs, right, and they're 12-minute quarters. I think we made a mistake by calling them scrimmages. They're probably preseason games, and that is up to each team to do whatever they want to do in them. I typically try a lot of stuff in those games just because it's a different opponent.”
On Friday afternoon, it was reported that Clippers' center Montrezl Harrell left the Orlando bubble to tend to a family emergency. Harrell plans to re-join the team at a later date, but will have to undergo a quarantine process again. There's a very real chance that, factoring in all the information we have on who is and isn't in Orlando, the Clippers' first scrimmage game will feature Joakim Noah as the starting center for that scrimmage.
Rivers says he'll use the first couple of games to play with lineups and minutes distribution.
“It's pretty much we know who we want to play, but as far as the rotations and the minutes, I think that's still a little bit in flux. We'll see. The preseason games you kind of decide on what you're going to do going by how you're practicing. You know, if you think your team is practicing extremely well and they've done it for a long time, then you'll probably be less in the preseason games. If you think you need more scrimmaging, you'll probably play more, so that's how I'm going to look at it.”
The Clippers will play three scrimmage games over the next week and a half before their re-opening night matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers on July 30th. It's safe to say that they'll be shorthanded for a few of the preseason games, and the same could very well apply to the regular season games, too.
Only time will tell.
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