On Sunday, with the Clippers needing a win to even up the series against the Spurs, Austin Rivers was huge off the bench and scored 16 points in 17 minutes on 7 of 8 shooting.

“We did game plan for him, but not for him to make the shots that he did,” said Duncan about Rivers. “Those are shots that we are kind of willing to give up at that point contested and he knocked them out.”

No player on the heavily criticized Clippers roster gets blasted more than the 22 year old son of the coach, so it’s always great to see a guy shut up his critics for atleast a day. And better than not hearing those critics for a day is hearing a proud Dad talk about his son for a day.

“For a moment, for a half second maybe, I became a dad in there,” Doc Rivers told Yahoo Sports.

Doc then defended his son and talked about the unfair criticism Austin gets for having the Rivers name on the back of his jersey.

“There’s a whole bench, but Austin’s always the piñata. The thing I don’t like is that guys use that name to get hits. It’s so cheap. And I hate that. All the way back, that always pissed me off. Guys writing about him just because it’s going to get hits. For that, I feel for him. It makes me think sometimes I wish I wasn’t the dad in this case.

“He’s been a target his whole life.”