Rivers’ remarks were the latest in a string of perceived swipes at the defending National Basketball Association champions.
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Five years later, Rivers became the head coach of the Clippers, while after a two-year stint with the Brooklyn Nets and the Washington Wizards separately, Pierce met his old boss again in L.A.
“If we got lucky, look at our record against them previous year [3-1 in the regular season]”. “Look at Golden State. Exactly”, Thompson said, laughing in reference to Houston coming from behind to beat the Clippers in the Western Conference semifinals. “That’s fine. At the end of the day, we’re still the champs, so you don’t really pay attention to any of the comments”.
Golden State shooter Klay Thompson responded to Rivers by saying he wanted to play the Clippers, but couldn’t because they had already been eliminated. Mark October 30 (Warriors at Rockets) and November 4 (Clippers at Warriors) on your calendars. Thompson said. “So that just makes me laugh”. That’s amusing. Weren’t they up 3-1 too? Warriors like Draymond Green have regularly stated that the basketball world does not believe in their chances of repeating, which is an exaggeration but also a common way for a successful team to motivate itself.
A number of reports last season suggested there is no love lost between the Clippers and Warriors and Rivers’ comments got an immediate reaction out of the Warriors.
“Didn’t they lose to the Rockets”, Thompson asked before giggling. They didn’t have to play us or the Spurs. “I’m pretty sure we smacked them”, Thompson said, via Inside Bay Area.
Not surprisingly, Harden said he is the game’s most valuable player.
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“I’ve gone days without talking to him just intentionally because it’s easy for us to always get back to what the team’s doing and how everything’s going, which I know he’s concerned about”, said Fraser, Kerr’s college teammate. The message was clear – things went very right for the reigning champs in 2014-15, but their rivals are now revamped and ready to put forth a more serious challenge in this upcoming season.
