NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CLIPPERS VS. SUNS

June 25, 2021

Tyronn Lue

LA Clippers

Practice Day

Q. When you decided not to start Zu and Pat, what conversations did you have with them and how did they receive that?

TYRONN LUE: In the Dallas series?

Q. Yes.

TYRONN LUE: They were great. Those two guys are winners. Whatever it takes to win, they are on board. And every time we had a time-out, every time we made an adjustment, Pat Beverley and Zu came to the coaching staff circle, “what are we doing”. And they go back and they would mention to the guys, make sure everyone is on the same page, and they knew their time was coming. To win a championship or to win at a high level, you need those kind of guys that understand and are going to buy into the team first. Those two guys are definitely that.

Q. Do you get pride out of the fact that they stayed ready and how in Game 3 how impressive both of them were?

TYRONN LUE: Yeah, I mean, you know, Zu is young but he's a vet now. And Pat Beverley has been a vet in this league and he's grinded his way to where he's at today. He understands the hard work and dedication. And you've got to stay ready, you never know when your number’s called.

Those two guys have been starters all season long, and not playing in the Dallas series, going back to the Utah series where Zu didn't play a lot either, him and Pat started playing more the last four games. Those guys are professionals and they stay ready, and like I said, I’m just happy they are getting an opportunity now and they are playing well.

Q. When guys are injured, or as you were just saying with Zu and Pat, not playing for some reason, what they can give the team on the sideline or in the locker room is so important. What have you noticed about the particular kind of advice or things that Kawhi talks about to either his teammates or you guys at halftimes or practices or whenever he is around the team?

TYRONN LUE: Kawhi and Serge both have been great. You know, Serge defensively, making sure guys are in the right spots, making sure guys are helping each other. He's big on that, on team defense.

Kawhi is just more, you know, everything; offense, defense, moving the basketball, how we can attack certain matchups, defensively how we can do different things on certain players.

So he's always engaged on the both ends. And Serge is more so on defense and helping teammates being the lone man protections and all that type of stuff. But having two veteran guys who have won championships and understand what it takes and both of those guys being out and just being still here for the team every single day, every practice, in the locker room before the games, after the games, has been huge for us.

Q. With Kawhi, is it more technique or scheme?

TYRONN LUE: More scheme.

Q. Marcus was a backup five for you yesterday, wasn't planned out to be that way, but did it work out kind of better than you hoped with Terance starting on CP and Pat on Book and Marcus as the backup five?

TYRONN LUE: It worked out better, but we were going into the game thinking we were going to get Marcus off early so he could come back and be the backup five. But with his knee situation, and not knowing if he's going to be able to play or not. And it pretty much happened late, probably 30 minutes on the clock, where we knew that he wasn't going to be able to start, we went with T-Mann. I thought it would be good for him to put him CP, the length, picking him up full court. That way PG can go stand and shoot. Not a lot of pick-and-rolls and things like that because, like you said, PG’s load has been high. He’s had to do a lot like last night, 15 rebounds, making plays and stuff like that. So that start was really good for us.

Q. Devin described your defense as "junk defense" and trying to take him out. How would you describe your guys defense the last two games?

TYRONN LUE: I just think physicality, I think ball pressure. I think staying on bodies, hitting bodies, being physical, that's our mindset. That's what we have to be every night.

First game I thought he did a great job, Devin, of just picking our blitzes apart, picking our fire apart, but then also scoring the basketball, as well. So we couldn't give him everything. So we decided to start Zu and Pat and try something different.

Q. Is Kawhi out for tomorrow?

TYRONN LUE: Yes, sir.

Q. And Marcus will probably still be like a game-time thing?

TYRONN LUE: Yes, it is. Haven't seen him yet today but we'll see how he's feeling.

Q. I wanted to ask you one question about just, and I don't know if it's simple black-and-white to ask this, but how much of your adjustments is reacting to what happened in the previous game, and like ideas and things that you went into the series wanting to use and you throwing it out there?

TYRONN LUE: A little bit of both. You kind of go into the series, which we didn't have a lot of time to game plan for, but you pretty much try to use the first game to kind of see what they are trying to attack and how we can attack them. Kind of see what their rotations are, try to get a flow out of trying to play their guys and when guys are coming in and when guys are going out of the game.

There's a lot of variations going into it. Going into the series, you think of a couple two or three things that you can possibly do or try to do and they do certain things, as well. Trying to be two or three steps ahead of your opponent when you can and kind of go from there.

Q. How many things do you come into the series with that you end up never using? What percentage would that be of ideas that you have and you never end up getting to use?

TYRONN LUE: Not that many because you don't want to do too much or you're kind of fooling your team. Cleveland was a lot different than this team because we were together for four years. We pretty much work on, in four years together, a lot of different things we can do defensively.

This has been a different team, so I have to be different as well. I just found for our team, the more simple it is, the better it is for us. You still can change, you still can adjust and still have different matchups. But make it as simple as possible for our guys has been best for us so far.