Clippers look to improve defense and rebounding against Utah

The Clippers will play the Utah Jazz for the second time this preseason Friday evening.

When the teams met Monday, the Clippers trailed by as many as 19 points and were beaten on the boards 55-32 in their 102-89 loss.

Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said the team must improve its rebounding.

“The other stuff, I think we’ll be fine,” Rivers said. “But our rebounding is a concern and we have to fix it.”

The Clippers have been outrebounded in each of their three preseason games, and have given up more than 100 points in each game.

“There are definitely things we need to work on, but we’re not going to get discouraged,” DeAndre Jordan said. “We have a pretty experienced team. There are just things we need to keep getting better at, our defense needs to get better.”

The Clippers have three sets of back-to-backs in the preseason. After playing the Jazz on Friday, they will fly to Las Vegas to play the Denver Nuggets on Saturday.

Power forward Blake Griffin isn’t exactly a huge fan of the schedule.

“You kind of wonder why we’d have three sets of back-to-backs, but it’s a good build-up toward the season,” Griffin said.

Rivers has started three different players at small forward in each of the team’s games so far — Matt Barnes against Golden State, Reggie Bullock against Portland and Chris Douglas-Roberts against Utah on Monday.

Rivers said he’s not sure who will start at that position Friday as he continues to evaluate his personnel.

“We just had a meeting and the small-forward position was never talked about,” Rivers said. “Matt’s going to play every night, we know that. I would prefer him to come off the bench, but if I start him, it’s really not that big of a deal to us. I think it’s a much bigger deal outside this building than it is in here.”