Doc Rivers knows a thing or two about the rigors of the playoffs. Not only has his team advanced to the postseason in 15 of his 20 years roaming the sidelines, but he also made the playoffs during his 13-year playing career on 10 occasions.
Needless to say, Rivers is uniquely suited to assess just how difficult the games get when they really start to matter. Still, that hardly means the Los Angeles Clippers' coach has any sympathy for his players as they fight like hell to upset the Golden State Warriors in the first round. In fact, Rivers doesn't even think he's asking too much of Patrick Beverley when tasking him with guarding both Kevin Durant and Steph Curry throughout the course of a game.
“It's hard, it's hard,” he said of Beverley's job, per ClutchPoints' Tomer Azarly. “But winning's hard. There's no easy process to this. Shoot, somebody had to guard Michael Jordan. Someone's gonna guard James Harden, and they've beaten him before.
“If you want to win, you gotta do hard work,” Rivers continued. “It shouldn't be easy. If you really want to win something, it should be hard. Golden State made it really hard for us last night and that was no fun. I looked at it like, ‘Okay. This is the playoffs. This is what happens. Deal with it.' Now we have to come back Sunday and try to make it hard on them, and if we do, they're gonna say ‘We gotta make it hard on them.' That's just the way it is.”
Beverley, the Clippers' designated stopper, has spent most of his court time over the first three games of this series going toe to toe with Durant, who was dominant in Game 3 en route to 32 points and seven assists, leading the Warriors to a blowout win.
Golden State leads Los Angeles 2-1. Game 4 is on Sunday at Staples Center.
Follow Us
Subscribe