Clippers end Mavericks season with 111-97 victory.
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POOL REPORT ON THE FLAGRANT FOUL 2 AND EJECTION OF LAC’S MARCUS MORRIS, SR. IN TONIGHT’S MAVERICKS/CLIPPERS GAME
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY TIM MACMAHON (ESPN.COM) WITH CREW CHIEF SCOTT FOSTER FOLLOWING TONIGHT’S DALLAS MAVERICKS VS. LA CLIPPERS GAME.
August 30, 2020
QUESTION: What did you see on the play that resulted in the Flagrant Foul 2 on Morris?
FOSTER: “During the replay review we saw a wind up, impact and follow through to the head and neck area of Doncic. By our standards that is unnecessary and excessive contact which by definition is a Flagrant Foul Penalty 2.”
QUESTION: Doc Rivers indicated in his ESPN sideline interview that he believed Morris’ reputation played a role in the ejection. Was Morris’ reputation or his previous tension with Dončić in this series considered?
FOSTER: “No. Of course not.
HEAD COACH RICK CARLISLE
(On tonight’s game and the thought that this is just the beginning for the Mavs…)
“I’m in full agreement with that. It was a tough series for a lot of reasons. We’re down some of our guys, which those kinds of things are going to happen. Today the way that our guys fought through all the ups and downs in a game was something that could make all Mavs fans proud, it makes our organization proud. We got a lot of great experience from being down here and being in the playoffs. It’s a different experience without the fans. This morning, we talked about the fact that for a normal game six, we’d be going home to 20,000 people and we’d have a real advantage there. We were going to have to find the energy amongst our family that’s here to fight and to give ourselves a chance — and they did. They fought as hard as they possibly could. Everyone was into it. You hate to lose but the effort was phenomenally good.”
(On what Carlisle learned about Luka Dončić during this playoff series…)
“He’s one of the toughest players that I’ve ever seen in this league — and that goes back 35, 36 years. He’s a great young player that is getting better each year. I mean he was rookie of the year last year and this year he’s up for most improved. I’d like to know if that’s ever happened before. I expect that he’ll come back next year even better with something new in his game the same way that Bird, Magic and Jordan and all those great players did every summer. Summer’s a little different now, it’s going to be a fall (and then) whenever we reconvene as a league again. He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for the game, for his teammates and for winning. Today it was hard getting him out of the game, second half we didn’t do it until the very end. We’re so fortunate to have him. Now we’ve got to get our roster completely healthy and keep working to get the right players around him.”
(On whether or not Carlisle considers this a great year for the Mavs…)
“I feel like we had a very productive year and a lot was accomplished. It’s hard to put your hands around everything at this particular moment. Getting back to the playoffs is very significant. Being 11 games over 500 in the regular season is significant. We didn’t win a lot of games in the seeding games, but we went through some great experiences. We went through three or four overtime games and that got us ready to play the Clippers. This series was like a lot of playoff series; it was up and down. Porzingis gets ejected three minutes into the third quarter of game one. We win game two wire-to-wire. Game three Luka goes down with the ankle and end up losing by eight. Game four the team showed its resilience in a huge way getting down 21 then battling back, having a lead, getting to overtime and then finding a way to win at the end. Luka put the team on his back in that game. Game five is really the only game I’m really disappointed in. You’re going to occasionally have a stinker in the playoffs where the other team plays great, you just don’t have a good night. But today, after being here 50-something days and going through everything that everyone went through this week, and being down not only KP but [Dwight] Powell and [Jalen] Brunson, not having [Willie] Cauley-Stein — it would have been easy for our guys to just fold up and they refused to do that. They refused to do that. They fought their butts off the entire game. I thought Jamahl Mosley had a great defensive plan. He kept mixing things up, kept us aggressive. Clippers would go on a run and we would stay right in their faces and make a run back at them. Then they pulled away at the end. We bent but we didn’t break in the game, and I was proud of that.”
(On another incident with Marcus Morris and whether or not he should have been suspended for Game 6…)
“The play speaks for itself. If you get into speculation about previous games — you have to ask the league about that. They looked at it. As soon as this play (today) happened in real time, I knew he was getting ejected, I knew it was a flagrant two. It’s just an unnecessary play and unfortunate.”
(On the team’s potential for a championship in the next few years…)
“We’re on the climb. You never know the exact timing of things like that but that’s our passion, that’s our obsession. It’s shared by the guys in the locker room. It’s an arduous climb to get back in the playoffs. We match up probably against the most physical and the most talented team in the entire league, and it was a difficult series but it was the kind of experience we needed. There were a lot of great things that came out of this season and there is going to be great optimism for the future. As I said a moment ago, we’ve got to get our roster completely healthy. We’ve got to keep building the roster around Luka and KP, keep adding pieces that fit around those two guys so that as we move forward, we can continue to grow the team. That’s really the most important thing.
MAVERICKS GUARD LUKA DONČIĆ
(On if the team is on the rise and how he feels about the team…)
“I am proud of our team and how we fought. I think we fought till the end but the Clippers have an amazing team so it was hard. I think we gave everything and played especially hard in the playoffs. I am proud of our guys.”
(On what will stick out to him the most looking back on the bubble experience…)
“Just hanging out with the guys a lot. I think it brought us closer.”
(On his last words on his bubble experience…)
“Like I said, hanging out with the guys a lot. It was different playing with no fans but it was a good experience. Everybody did an amazing job keeping everyone safe and giving us everything to do when we were not playing. It was just an amazing job by everybody.”
(On if he drew energy from going up against Kawhi Leonard…)
“He is an amazing player. He shows up every game. He is hard to stop, almost impossible to stop. Like I said, he is an amazing player and a lot of people look up to him.”
(On how he viewed the Marcus Morris foul on him…)
“It was a terrible foul. That is two games in a row that he did something like that. I really had hoped that last game it wasn’t on purpose but looking back now after this game, I think so. I don’t want to deal with those kinds of players and just move on.”
(On what he will work on in the offseason…)
“There are a lot of things to improve on. You cannot work on just one thing, you have to work on everything. But I think I will especially work on shooting.”
(On what is says about the team when they don’t give up even when they are down big…)
“It just shows that we want to win. Obviously they are going to make a run but know that we can make a run. We just never give up and we are fighting the whole game and that is what I am proud of.”
(On if his goal is to win a championship next year…)
“My goal at the start of every season is to win a championship. There is no other goal so that is going to be mine.”
(On if he thought the Clippers tried to get under his skin in the entire series…)
“They are a great defensive team. They have a lot of good defenders and they were switching. Every other quarter there was someone else defending me, but they have a great defensive team, so it was tough to score.”
MAVERICKS CENTER MAXI KLEBER
(On what was shared in the locker room after the game…)
“What was said was they appreciated us on everything, even today. We never gave up. Kept fighting the whole game. You know that’s what we wanted to do the whole season. We got to learn from this. This was the first playoff experience. A little bit unusual with this bubble situation, but overall I think everybody put in fight and wanted to win.”
(On Luka Dončić’s season…)
“I mean, he’s key, you know. I can’t even describe the things that’s he’s doing, especially offensively for us. He’s a very rare, very special talent, and he just does it all for a team. Passing, creating for other guys, shooting the shots, stepping threes. He’s not afraid of anything. So, as a teammate, it’s fun to watch and he gets everybody involved and everybody going offensively. Even when a team throws a double team at him, he has a solution for everything. He’s just way ahead of his age and it’s just a lot of fun for everybody to watch him play.”
(On Luka Dončić as a leader…)
“I mean, first of all, he shows it on the court. He plays with a lot of heart. He’s not afraid of anything. He’s going out leading by example and when it comes to practice, he’s the guy who’s staying in playing one on one trying to get better every day. He does a lot like that. He’s developing and talking more and more and that will be his role and he knows that; but right now he’s doing a lot by leading by example.”
(On his excitement-level for the team going forward…)
“I mean, I’m very excited. I think we stepped out there, played with a lot of heart. Me personally, I just said it in German, I didn’t have a great series at all. Especially offensively, I didn’t play well. I think we have a lot of potential, a lot of room for improvement, and it was the first time we played in the playoffs. It was a different situation here in the bubble and not the usual with our fans because they would have helped us too, but you know it’s a great learning experience and definitely take a lot away from that.”
MAVERICKS CENTER BOBAN MARJANOVIĆ
(On getting back into the game after being down 23 points…)
“I think we raised our energy. The guys picked up their energy, which is much more [important] when you have empty stands, [because] you don’t feel the same energy like when you’re playing at home. You need everybody to support the guys and I think we did a great job with that. And we just come back [to] six [points], but I think we had that chance and Kawhi [Leonard] hit a couple shots in a row and after that it killed a little bit of our energy. But I think I’m so proud of my team. I must be honest, because they worked so [hard]. Of course we missed KP, we missed a couple players, but you know I think we stuck together—like a team, like a family. And it’s amazing what we’ve done so far, how we played, how we won a couple games. And it’s an amazing feeling when I’m around these guys, and around the whole staff, and everybody did a great job. And I hope some guys aren’t disappointed too much. And of course it’s a tough game, and of course a playoff, but we gave it our best.”
(On playing without Kristaps Porzingis…)
“Yeah, I already said he’s the big key of our team. And he and Luka are the best players, and [each] one of the best players in the NBA. They do a great job together. Unfortunately we didn’t have KP these [three] games. I think the team, we helped each other, we played great, but if we have him [Porzingis] I think it’s harder for the Clippers to beat us.”
(On Marcus Morris’ Flagrant Foul 2 and subsequent ejection…)
“Like I said already, we are a team. We need to work together. As I was saying, with no fans [we were] trying to literally talk with our players, [and] trying to talk with our teammates.”
(On the bubble experience…)
“It was fun. I must be honest. When I came here, I felt like ‘oh, man.’ Fortunately, how I felt then—what I will do, I’ll get bored every day, you bring video games, I tried to play piano, [and] you bring all the things [to not get bored], but it was fun. At first before you [came] here you, you think about the things you like to do [that you can’t]. But people [NBA] did a great job—you hear about the player’s lounge, you hear about pool, you hear about cornhole, boat, fishing [and] everything that you could imagine you had here in the bubble. And of course you cannot go outside, but you can bring all food or whatever you like, and of course what they have on a menu. It was so fun. I had a great experience. I think how I felt at the beginning I can say we did a great job with the team. We stuck together. We did a lot of stuff together and an amazing team is how we helped each other and got everybody’s energy up. Of course we are missing our families, and because we’re [the only] ones here right now—it [was] on us, our team [to keep ourselves going] and of course this is because we have a great team and great energy in our locker room.”
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