National Basketball Association

LA Clippers' Doc Rivers almost forfeited a game for rest in 2014

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers has had plenty of experience with the gruelling NBA schedule and travel, and once considered forfeiting a game in 2014 because of it.

The NBA schedule is a gruelling one. A prolonged preseason (which is finally almost over) followed by a 82-game regular season and best-of-seven playoff series for teams that make it far enough is an immense challenge to players. Not only in regards to staying healthy, maintaining a strict training routine in between contests and making it through so many games, but staying focused mentally and gaining enough sleep to recharge. LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers knows this as much as anyone, and has faced tough decisions in the past when it comes to looking out for the welfare of his players.

ESPN’s Baxter Holmes, in a brilliant story on the NBA’s schedule, detailed the night of January 28, 2011, a night in which Doc’s loaded Boston Celtics (the 2008 champions with a 35-10 record at the time) were clear favorites on the road against a weak Phoenix Suns team, yet lost 88-71.

The Suns certainly didn’t win because of talent, instead thriving off one massive factor going in their favor: rest.

The Celtics had played the Trail Blazers in Portland the night before and the Cavaliers in Boston two nights before that.

Holmes reported the comments from sleep doctor Charles Czeisler, who had pointed out the Suns game as one for concern and said, “your instincts will be bad. It’ll be like playing drunken basketball. You will not win this game.”

Like playing drunk. That’s how serious of an effect a lack of sleep and travelling across different time zones in three days can have on a team.

Holmes also reported a later instance from 2014 during Doc’s earlier days as head coach of the Clippers. Facing a back-to-back with the second game on the road, immediately after a seven-game road trip, Doc almost didn’t see the point in his team playing:

Doc Rivers is keenly aware of which games are “unwinnable” — so much so that he’s actually considered the once-unthinkable: forfeiting. Rivers, now the Clippers’ coach, recalls that LA was scheduled in 2014 for back-to-back games, the second on the road, immediately following a seven-game road trip. “I contemplated keeping the team home, literally,” Rivers says. “We knew we were walking into getting our ass kicked, and that’s what happened.

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Forfeiting games isn’t something we see NBA teams do, and Doc ultimately only contemplated doing so. However, for him to consider such a decision goes to show just how tough the schedule can be on players (particularly in years past), and that fatigue is only heightened when flying across time zones and too much travel at once is added into the equation.

Doc knew how ‘drunk’ players could look on the court when that’s the case sometimes. All he had to do was remember that puzzling night in 2011.

Thankfully, current NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been doing a tremendous job of tweaking the schedule, ensuring that, over the last couple of years, the number of back-to-backs and weeks with four games in five nights have reached their lowest levels yet. It helps preserve the players, and helps preserve the quality of the game for fans, too.

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Such improvements can’t remove the draining nature of the season, but they help an awful lot and will prevent Doc and the LA Clippers facing similar situations to that game in 2014.

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