In his second season as leader of the Los Angeles Clippers, Doc Rivers is preparing for yet another playoff gauntlet in the Western Conference. Rivers saw the Golden State Warriors in the first round last year, and this year his team faces the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the opening round. Whether or not that’s fair, based on how the seedings are arranged, Rivers has addressed already.
Rivers understands the challenge at hand, and reacts to the rigor of facing such a challenge in the first round of the playoffs, via Arash Markazi of ESPN:
“I don’t think most teams care,” Rivers said. “I’ve talked to a couple of coaches that are friends that are in the playoffs and it’s like a tape recorder, [they all say], ‘Does it matter?’ It’s going to be a hard series. I’m sure a couple teams probably would rather play a couple other teams, without me looking, but even when you get those teams, they’re going to be hard. There’s nobody that’s not good in the West. You’re going to have a hard series and the team that accepts that and embraces that will do well and the team that’s shocked by that will be out quickly.”
The Spurs finished the season hot, winning 14 of their last 16 games, but Rivers and the Clippers finished hot as well, winning 14 of their last 15 and winning their last seven games of the season, including a franchise-record eight straight wins on the road.
“We’re pretty hot, too,” Rivers said. “Our goal is to win a title. You’re not going to avoid anybody. If you’re going to play, you got to play and you got to play for it. No one’s going to give it to you. You have to go play for it and you got to earn it. The Spurs are the best team in the NBA, as far as I’m concerned, because as far as I know they are the last team to win the title and until someone beats them, no matter what all our records are, they’re the best …
“They’ve been the benchmark, and I think all of us know that.”
The Spurs and Clippers split their regular season meetings 2-2. Their first round match up is easily the most enticing of the entire playoffs. Rivers couldn’t ask for a bigger first test for his team. Knocking off the defending champs would give the Clippers unquestionable momentum for the rest of the postseason. If Rivers’ guys have experienced the kind of growth he thinks they have, embracing the opportunity and giving the Spurs everything they’ve got will have to be good enough.
Blake Griffin last week: “You probably never want to play the Spurs in the first round, if you have a choice.”
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) April 16, 2015
