Rowan Kavner 
Digital Content Coordinator
LOS ANGELES – Chris Paul watched Sunday night’s Game 1 win immediately after it ended. Then, he watched it again Monday morning. This all came before the team would watch more film later Monday afternoon.
While it might seem difficult to critique a 20-point win, that’s not an issue for Paul and the Clippers, who feel they still left plenty to be desired despite the outcome.
“I saw a lot of things,” Paul said. “Just because you score on a particular possession or just because they don’t make a shot doesn’t mean you did the right thing. Sometimes, they just missed it and you didn’t cover it the right way.”
The Clippers held Portland to 39.8 percent shooting. Every Trail Blazers starter shot worse than 50 percent, and every Trail Blazers starter other than Damian Lillard made just three field goals or fewer.
It was the type of performance the Clippers have come to rely on with a stouter defense throughout the season.
Yet, they were far from satisfied.
“We did pretty good, but we can always get better – we can always get better,” Paul repeated. “We’re about to look at film now and probably go over some things and see what we can do better.”
Head coach Doc Rivers won’t have a problem pointing those things out, even if he’s keeping his tactics close to the vest. Even in the immediate aftermath of a comfortable Game 1 victory, in which the Clippers kept the dangerous Portland rebounders off the glass, he wasn’t gloating about the performance.
He kept the same tone Monday morning, despite the statistics that would seem to indicate a stellar defensive night from the Clippers.
“I thought we were good defensively, but I don’t think we were anything past good,” Rivers said. “We made a lot of mistakes. They’re going to make adjustments, and we’re going to have to be better.”
That attitude seemed to pervade the mindset of everyone on the Clippers, both starters and backups. The Clippers know winning the first game of a series means little, especially when trying to protect home court, if they don’t replicate those results in Game 2.
Last year, the Clippers beat the Spurs at home in Game 1 only to drop the next one, forcing them to go to San Antonio to try to win back their home court advantage. They’d prefer not to have to do that again.
“It was a dominant win,” said Austin Rivers, “but it was one of those things where we understand we’re trying to win both at home.”
Austin Rivers said even if the Trail Blazers lost Game 1 by 50 points, it won’t mean anything if the Clippers let Sunday’s performance go to waste Wednesday.
“We’re not focused on anything but that,” he said. “We felt like we could’ve played a lot better than yesterday, honestly. We did a lot of things wrong in the first half we feel like we need to correct. I feel like we’ll play a lot better next game.”
