Lucked out Tuesday afternoon. A buddy called and said his boss was giving him a pair of seats court side for the Pels-Clips game. Turns out they were end seats right next to the Clippers bench. Montrez Harrell actually sat in the seat right in front of me for several of Doc Rivers clip board sessions during time outs.

Anyway besides some quality jaw jacking with Doc and some of the other players, it was way cool to hear how an experienced NBA staff (including a dapper Sam Cassell!) approached dealing with Anthony Davis and the rest of the Pels line up. Nothing earth shattering but thought I'd share a few of their takes:

-They thought they could dog Elfrid Payton. The coaches were constantly on Pat Beverley and Avery Bradley to get up in Payton's grill because "he can't deal with on-ball pressure." I thought he dealt with it pretty damn well and may have tossed that observation their way toward the end of the game after a few cold ones;

-Doc thinks the Pels are lazy getting back on defense. He was constantly imploring his guards to get the ball up the floor because "you know they don't like to run back." I didn't notice us getting beat back up the floor too often, but this was a constant theme for the Clips staff. Doc may be thinking of the Boogie-era Pels;

-They were getting ready to strangle Pat Beverley for switching on to Davis all the time. When the Pels had the ball the Clips bench was constantly yelling "no switch, no switch!" and still Beverley would switch. It was hilarious because he'd come over and say "Coach, I had to!" but you for sure got the feeling somewhere in his mind he was like "I can check this big mother!" He couldn't. Still, I'd love to have Beverley on the Pels;

-Boban came over and stood next to us a few times and that is the largest human being I have ever seen up close, even bigger than Shaq (young Shaq, who I ate nachos next to one time). No offense meant to the guy, but it seriously felt like Big Foot had just walked out of the woods and was looming over you.

-They were really working one of the refs hard, name of Rodney. Every call almost was "Come on, Rodney!" "No way, Rodney!" Call something on Davis, Rodney!" Finally my buddy and I had to take up for him. "Stay strong, Rodney!" "Don't let 'em push you around, Rodney!" Rodney finally looked over and gave us the thumbs up;

-Doc was great with the fans and you could tell even a lot of the Pels players like him, as they'd stop by to chat it up during time outs or when back on defense during foul shots at the other end. A couple of Pels fans were dogging him pretty good but he didn't mind. When Beverley and Bradley were struggling to score late in the game, one guy yelled "better put Cassell in, Doc!" and Rivers kind of playfully shoved him down toward the scorer's table;

-Didn't get any good burns in but when Lou Williams was walking back to the bench after hitting a 3-pointer off the backboard I did say "Hey Lou, you've got to call glass first if you're going to bank them in." He turned around and gave me a quick smile and fist bump.

Not sure I'll ever be that close to the action again so thought I'd share.