Plan is Beverley back by opener
During the one season he played under Mike D’Antoni, Patrick Beverley became accustomed to one of the things that the coach is known for.
“With D’Antoni, we didn’t practice a lot,” Beverley said this week, smiling.
Now Beverley is with the Clippers and coach Doc Rivers has his team practicing, practicing and practicing some more.
“I know Doc is trying to try this new thing [for me],” Beverley said, again smiling. “Naw, it was good though. I was fortunate to get a couple of games in, fortunate to watch as a spectator, able to go through my film and see me playing fast at times and when to slow down.”
A sore right knee kept Beverley out of practice since he was injured in the third exhibition game. He took some shots before the Clippers practiced Monday and did some drills with a brace on his knee, but he didn’t participate in the session.
The plan is to ease Beverley through a workout Tuesday, ramp up things in practice Wednesday and then play him in the season opener Thursday against the Lakers at Staples Center.
Beverley has watched film and the last two exhibition games and assessed the pace the Clippers want to play at.
“Coming [to] a new team, it’s always an adjustment,” he said. “It’s about seeing when I can get Blake [Griffin] in his sweet spots, seeing when I can get DeAndre [Jordan] in his duck-ins. [Danilo] Gallinari, he just came back yesterday.
“It won’t be easy. Nothing in life is easy and you wouldn’t want it easy. We’re happy, we’re fortunate to be healthy right now, fortunate to display our talents this upcoming Thursday against probably one of the best young teams in the NBA. It’s going to be fun.”
Clippers getting ready
Since the Clippers’ exhibition season ended Friday night, they’ve had a couple days to finetune things.
It hasn’t been seamless because they’ve had up to six players out with injuries, slowing the process.
“I just want to see them on the floor,” Rivers said. “And that’s the truth, really. I think we kind of really worked on how we want to play and who we want to be defensively and offensively. I think our guys understand that. Now from this point forward, it’s putting it into action, executing it better, doing a better job.”
Rivers hasn’t been able to expand his offense because of the injuries. He ran fewer out-of-timeout sets during the exhibition season and tried to make things a bit simpler.
“We would have had more stuff in, definitely more end-of-thegame stuff in, for sure,” Rivers said. “But the season will define us anyway. So we’ll find out who we are.”
Etc.
Rookie guard Sindarius Thornwell, who has been out with a sprained right shoulder, practiced Monday.