Rivers fires back at Cuban, says Jordan fiasco triggered desire to improve

As it should be, the stage is being nicely set for the Nov. 11 showdown between the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks.

On Thursday, Clippers general manager and coach Doc Rivers responded to Mavs' owner Mark Cuban's comments that losing DeAndre Jordan would have been the end of Rivers' career.

"I'll say this. I'm so grateful to work for a team owned by Steve Ballmer, someone who stands for character and substance and who is so loyal," Rivers told the Orange County Register's Dan Woike, playing the billionaire card. "He is someone who I know will stand with me, even when things aren't always going our way. I think what happened with DJ was he decided to choose substance and character over smoke and mirrors."

Cuban had taken offense to earlier comments by Rivers where he referred to Cuban's actions during Jordan's free-agent fiasco as "very silly."

For what it's worth, Rivers also told Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski that losing Jordan to the Mavericks would not have had his career "go up in flames," as Cuban put it.

"Losing him would've always gnawed at me," Rivers said. "But it wouldn't have stopped me. I would've said, 'F*** that, we're going to figure out a way to get this right.'"

Rivers added to Wojnarowski that the saga was a galvanizing moment of sorts for the longtime NBA coach, who has been maligned for some of his actions as GM:

It also triggered something else for me. It might have been my front-office wake-up call. I was not a pleasant guy to me, or my staff, after I thought we lost (Jordan) - and even after we got him back. We had a lot of "come-to-Jesus" meetings. I told them, and told myself: "We've got to get fucking better." And we rolled up our sleeves, and we got better.