Daily Madden: Clippers Coach Has A Tough Task
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Can the Los Angeles Clippers put aside the controversy swirling around the team's owner when they face the Warriors in Game Five of their playoff series in L.A. Tuesday night?
"We always talk about anything that is a distraction and getting rid of it," John Madden told the KCBS Radio morning crew. "This is a big thing and it's a lot bigger than some distractions that you can compare it to. But as a coach, you always have to eliminate distractions and get to the point. We always talk about focus and (how) you have to put everything into playing the game. And you don't have time or place for other things. Now I know the importance of this, and I know what it means. But if you were a coach, whatever that distraction is, you have to eliminate -- at least for those three hours -- you have to eliminate that distraction. And I don't know that it can be done."
The teams are 2-2 in the best of seven series.
"(The Clippers) have to push through all of it," Madden said. "The closer you get to the game, you have to narrow your circle. And you keep narrowing, narrowing, narrowing until it's just the coach and team and a few others... When you get it where it's just the people involved, then that's where you have to do it." (6:40)
Daily Madden
(Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM.)
