Clippers notes: L.A. looks to take advantage of Rudy Gobert's absence from the Utah Jazz lineup

Los Angeles • No one knows for sure when, if at all, Rudy Gobert might be ready to return for the Utah Jazz.

In the meantime, the Los Angeles Clippers would like to take advantage of the 7-foot-1 hole in the Jazz's defense.

"It's funny. It should have helped us," coach Doc Rivers said of Gobert's injury. "If you look at the games where we've been successful, it was our guards going downhill, into the paint, on Gobert. Logically, if he's out, we should be like, 'Let's really go downhill.' We didn't do that a lot. We've got to get our guards going downhill."

Rivers called on guards Chris Paul, Jamal Crawford and Raymond Felton to work harder at attacking in the paint Tuesday night at Staples Center, and putting extra pressure on the Jazz's defense.

"We didn't have enough of that," Rivers said.

To that end, L.A. would like to have Austin Rivers back from a hamstring injury as soon as possible, but the swingman is out for Game 2 and will likely also miss Game 3 in Salt Lake City.

Even with Gobert out, the Clippers know better than anybody that the Jazz's defense can still be formidable.

"They got [Derrick] Favors, who came and stepped in and did a pretty good job," big man Mo Speights said. "Then Jeff [Withey] came in a did a pretty good job too. When your top guy goes down, everybody else got to step up and use their opportunity to play on one of the biggest stages. We've just gotta not take them for granted because he's out. They already beat us without him."

Getting away

Chris Paul's escape from basketball?

More basketball.

The point guard attended Church on Easter Sunday, then spent the evening watching the NBA playoffs.

"It was cool to watch Boston play, to watch Isaiah [Thomas], who I've known for a long time, to see him play, dealing with all he's dealing with," Paul said, alluding to the death of Thomas' sister Chyna in a car crash over the weekend. "So if I did take something away from it, it was an appreciation for the game, how it is sometimes a getaway."

Fast forward

After scoring just 95 points, the Clippers want to pick up the pace in Game 2.

We like playing fast," center DeAndre Jordan said this week. "We get a lot of easy buckets playing fast. In order to keep our pace up and run, we've got to get stops. We can't run if we take the ball out every time."

afalk@sltrib.com

Twitter: @aaronfalk