Game 7 of the World Series had just begun Wednesday night when Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers sat down for his pregame press conference. His team’s game against the Dallas Mavericks would obviously preclude him from watching baseball.
But it did not stop him from telling the story of the time he tried to purposefully get ejected from a game to watch golf.
More specifically, Rivers said, he wanted to watch Tiger Woods in the Masters.
“When I was coaching the Celtics, I think there were four games left in the season — everything had been wrapped up as far as playoffs," Rivers said. "The Masters was on. And at halftime, (general manager) Danny Ainge tells me that Tiger’s making a run. He says, ‘Get thrown out! Get thrown out and come back and watch with me.’
“So I go out and, this is like the first play in the third quarter, I go for it, like yelling and ‘ahhh!’ And I want to say it was (referee) Jake O’Donnell, but I’m not sure who it was. And he just stares at me. Nothing.
"Then during the free throw, he tells me to come over. He says, ‘I want to watch it, too.’”
Rivers said he and the referee started laughing. “It was great,” he said.
The Clippers routed the Mavericks, 119-98, at Staples Center on Wednesday and improved to 5-2. Their local counterparts, of course, did not have as much success. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost Game 7 to the Houston Astros, 5-1, and are still searching for their first championship since 1988.
