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Austin Rivers helps save Clippers' season, brings tears to his father's eyes


When Doc Rivers walked into the locker room, the scene stopped him. Chris
Paul called on the Clippers to congratulate the young guard responsible for
saving the season and present him the game ball. Everyone clapped. Everyone
let out a long, loud cheer for Austin Rivers.


"For a moment, for a half second maybe, I became a dad in there," Doc Rivers
told Yahoo Sports later on Sunday at the AT&T Center. The tears welled in his
eyes, but he quickly wiped them away and stiffened in the concrete corridor.


To trade for his son, Rivers had to make a case on the move's merits to a
dubious basketball community. He's had to live with the criticism. They've
had to live with it together. They had Sunday together, too.


Austin Rivers had his finest moment in the NBA on Sunday, scoring 16 points,
delivering defense, deflections and a 114-105 victory over the San Antonio
Spurs to bring this best-of-seven series back to Staples Center at 2-2. He
made deft drives to the basket and fearless finishes to stun the Spurs.


For nine years, Doc Rivers coached and lived in Boston. For most of that
time, his wife and children stayed in Orlando. Austin completed middle school
and high school, spent a year at Duke and moved onto the NBA. Father and son
were separated a long time, often coming and going in moments Doc had flown
down and stolen an off-night for a high school game or an ACC game on Tobacco
Road.


"Listen, we haven't been together a lot," Rivers told Yahoo Sports. "In a lot
of ways, I am his coach."


More coach than father, he's trying to say. It's an honest admission, and it
comes tinged with a touch of sadness. Nevertheless, Austin Rivers has had to
find his own way with these Clippers, earn his own respect. This was a
beginning on Sunday, nothing more, nothing less.


As much as anything, it's been Chris Paul and Blake Griffin fueling him with
belief. In the losing locker room of Game 3, Griffin told Austin Rivers that
he could make a difference, that he needed to use his size and speed to go
downhill, to assail the rim. Austin heard him, and heeded him.


"I need you," Paul told Austin on Sunday in the huddles, and, yes, Austin
finally found a way to impact this Clippers season. The NBA's a survival of
the fittest, and that's the kind of performance that Austin will need to
deliver again and again to have staying power. Everyone wanted to probe for
the "Happy Days" moment between coach and player on Sunday, between father
and son.


Austin dismissed all that. "Nah, man, we didn't win a championship."


Mostly, Austin wants to talk about his responsibility to his teammates –
 which is where a young player has to start in the NBA, especially this one.
After Game 4, the first question asked of Austin had been about giving his
father "an early Christmas present." Everything's within the context of Doc,
and that's how it'll be until the son can prove that he's a consistently good
player, that he belongs in these moments for a championship contender.


Wisely, there was no "I told you so," and no-one-believed-in-me defiance
after Game 4. This was an immense performance at the crossroads of the
Clippers' season, but it was only one. Austin Rivers wants to do it again.
That's how the criticism will stop. Play well again, and again.


"This is something I know I can do," he said.


At 22 years old, it's possible he can still be right about himself.
Sometimes, people give up on players too soon. Out of Duke, Rivers hadn't
been ready to live up to the promise of the 10th overall pick in the NBA
draft – and maybe he'll never be that. For the Clippers this season, for the
GM and coach, Doc River is under intense scrutiny. Rivers traded his 2014
first-round pick, Reggie Bullock, for his son in January.

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後面實在太長了就恕我不翻譯了，重點大家有看到就好　^^"

好期待明天的比賽，無論誰贏都會是非常精采的吧！

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