Clippers plan to be fit for rematch with Mavs
After the Clippers lost Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals to Denver last September, Doc Rivers bemoaned the fact that this squad wasn’t in top shape at its most important moment of the season.
“I thought conditioning, we kept having to take guys out because they were tired,” the Clippers’ former coach said. “We’re in the playoffs. And you had to do it, guys were asking to come out, so you had to do it, but that’s not typical for a Game 7 ... I thought it hurt our rotations at times.”
That situation, as Rivers noted, had a lot to do with the warped reality of the bubble, and the fact that key players missed extended stretches during the Clippers’ stay in Lake Buena Vista, Florida — knowledge that was front of his mind that night, when he rattled
off the list: Montrezl Harrell missed 30 days; Lou Williams missed 14 and Patrick Beverley 16. And those stints away all included several days quarantining in a hotel room, during which players were unable to exercise outside for more than an hour a day.
This postseason, the NBA is free of the bubble, with more flexible gym access and decreasingly stringent policies to evade spread of the coronavirus. But there’s another challenge, the top six seeds in both conferences will have a week-long wait between Sunday’s regular-season finale and the opening of the playoffs this weekend. That affords players plenty of time for rest and recovery and, possibly, for rust to set in and game conditioning to wane.
Tyronn Lue, who took over from Rivers this season, is determined to have his team fit for its firstround rematch against the Dallas Mavericks.
And so, first, he ensured the Clippers top contributors — finally all healthy — would remain that way by holding them out of most if not all of the team’s final two games, losses against the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Now, after taking Monday off, Lue’s tune was clear.
“The biggest thing is just focusing on our conditioning,” Lue said, before the Clippers’ 117-112 regularseason-closing loss to the Thunder.
“I think doing a lot of fullcourt, 5-on-0 skeleton, lot of shooting drills at game speed and competition shooting. And then one or two days (where we) bring a DJ in and do a conditioning day for 30 minutes, where we’re just doing all conditioning, having a DJ there and just kind of going through a conditioning routine.”
(Lue suggested the deejaying honors would go not to Skrillex or Tiesto, but possibly to Jay Porterfield, who also is a performance scientist for the Clippers.)
It’s the type of betweengame strategy Lue developed during his three consecutive NBA Finals runs in Cleveland, when often the Cavaliers would sweep opponents and have to wait days for the next round to begin.
“We would have seven or eight days off,” Lue said. “So we was able to find different ways, unique ways to to kind of stay in shape and try and stay in game shape as best as possible.”
No COVID-19 postponements
Clippers players missed 144 games this season for reasons including Paul George’s painful bone edema in his toe to Kawhi Leonard’s Christmas Day facial laceration. Despite having to navigate those disruptions, Lue’s squad has the distinction of being one of only three teams to finish the regular season without having a game postponed due to the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols.
Only the Lakers and Brooklyn Nets can say the same after 31 NBA games were postponed.
“We definitely feel blessed,” Lue said. “And also (it speaks) just to our team and trying to do things the right way, follow the NBA protocols as best as possible. It was a good thing for us, no one really had to miss a significant amount of games outside of Amir, you know he’s gotten better so far, so that’s good to see.”
The Clippers played the final seven games of the season without second-year wing Amir Coffey, who is out because of protocols. Previously, at a road game in January, the Clippers were without support staffers when they had to quarantine and return to L.A., and later that month, without stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George for the same two games because of protocols. Otherwise, they avoided disruption during to the already condensed schedule.
“Our team took a professional approach to the season,” Lue said. “We knew we had to adapt, and our guys did a great job of adapting.”