LA Clippers coach Doc Rivers said his players are ready to push through the NBA postseason after “they thought it was over” after Wednesday’s meeting of emotional players.
“Oh, they want to,” Rivers said when asked if his team is ready to move forward during an interview Thursday on Fox Prime Ticket. “They are really looking forward to it. Yesterday was still a very difficult day. Like their emotions were everywhere.
“They thought it was over. It was just a very difficult day for everyone.”
Rivers spoke during Wednesday night’s meeting with players at the request of Oklahoma City point guard and NBA Players Association president Chris Paul. The Clippers, along with the Los Angeles Lakers, initially initially agreed not to continue with the season when the players were questioned in the meeting, ESPN source Adrian Wojnarowski said.
The players met again on Thursday morning and voted in favor of resuming playoffs, a source told Wojnarowski.
“To be honest, that mood was not ours and said, ‘We don’t want to play basketball,'” Clippers goalkeeper Landry Shamet, appearing on ‘The JJ Redick Podcast,’ said of the first poll Wednesday night. “It was just a survey about what we thought was the best thing to do. That’s what came out of our team.”
“Of course things went very fast,” Shamet added as he did not feel confident when he went to bed Wednesday night. “A lot of people had to step up and try to figure out what was best for us. But one thing I think we did not fully take into account was how high emotions were, how exciting the situation was and how this was really the first time we as a whole when players are able to sit and process and think about, talk about and have really good dialogue in the bubble about all this. “
During the meeting on Wednesday night, Rivers said players expressed “many different points of view” in the aftermath of Jacob Blake’s shooting, which sparked protests and angered many players and coaches. Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a town about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Bucks made the historic decision to play Game 5 of their first-round series against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers all followed suit and opted not to play their games Wednesday either.
“I thought it was great,” Rivers said of the Bucks’ decision on their own not to play Game 5. “I wish, of course, they would have warned all the players so that they were not blinded by it, but I thought the action was the right action, especially because of who it was. I thought the one team that had to take immediate action Milwaukee was, if we were to take action at all, and again that is our choice. “
Rivers said the meeting between players and coaches that night after the postponed games made him realize just how much the isolation in the NBA bubble had affected the players and their emotions.
Clippers guard Paul George touched on how he underestimated mental health in the bubble when he admitted he was experiencing anxiety and some depression and sought help from a team psychiatrist, teammates and those close to him to snap out of a recent shooting .
“It woke me up quite a bit from some things I’ve missed since I’m in this bubble,” Rivers said of the players expressing their views during the meeting. “You forget it’s hard in the bubble. And even some of it came from. I knew it was hard, but listening to some of these guys talk, just mental awareness, we need to be a little sharper about that, too.”
Rivers added: “I do not think it’s a coincidence that everyone in this bubble just seems to be a little emotional and I’m not kidding. It’s true. I think part of the effect of every day is sitting together, it has had that effect on everyone. “
Rivers was incredibly emotional and fought back tears after the Clippers’ Game 5 win over Dallas on Tuesday night when he was asked about the Blake shooting video. Rivers said he was once again reminded of how Black men should fear for their lives because of police brutality and racism.
Rivers’ outpouring of frustration, anger and sadness over the recent shooting of a Black police officer went viral, with videos of his remarks also shared by President Barack Obama.
Rivers said players struggled to know if their messages and comments about social justice had an impact because of their isolation on the NBA campus in Florida.
“I think I’m here, you feel like you’re doing work, but you do not see the work, you do not know what you’re doing,” Rivers said. “Because you’re sitting in this bubble, so you’re a little bit away from the real world. I thought some of the guys expressed that they know they’re doing the right thing here, they know they have a platform here , but they just feel like they are not part of the movement here.Because they do not see the results that all the things they have said have actually been done [something] because they are here. “
Rivers said voting, police reform and social justice are three areas he and players want to influence to move forward in the fight for change.
“I think we’re forming a group today to try to make that scope smaller and understand exactly what we want to do,” Rivers said of what steps are ahead. “But we’re on the right track.”
Rivers said Clippers guard Lou Williams stopped on Thursday to chat in his hotel room and Rivers told his sixth husband that these past 24 hours will be what Williams will eventually look back on and understand how effective it really was.
“Man, what a good, tough day,” Rivers said as he told Williams. “And he was like, ‘What is that? That’s a good, tough day?’ And I said, ‘You had one yesterday. One day you’ll look back on this and you will understand.’ “
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