Doc Rivers made a point of changing Clippers’ road mentality last season

Last season, the Clippers had a franchise-best 26 wins on the road.

At Tuesday’s practice, the day before the team’s season opener in Sacramento against the Kings, Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said he was instrumental in changing the team’s away game mentality.

“My first year here, going on the road, I thought it was like we were going on a camping trip,” said Rivers of the 2013-14 season, when the Clippers won 23 road games. “That’s how you felt. Everyone was making their plans for restaurants and all of that stuff. And I was like, this is a work trip.”

Rivers said his approach was two-pronged. First, he taught the players to embrace the hate they receive in other cities.

“I told them there’ nothing wrong with being a villain,” Rivers said.

The players embraced that role. After the Clippers won their 25th game on the road last season, Blake Griffin said he had learned to harness the opposing team’s crowd to his advantage.

Said Griffin in April: “On the road, you try and feed off of the negative energy. ... It’s kind of cool playing on the road because you know everybody is against you for the most part and it’s fun to have that mentality.”

Rivers’ other strategy was to get the Clippers to approach away games with what he calls “the proper respect.”

“Everyone was making plans for the road trips, for everything but basketball,” Rivers said. “We had a staff meeting about it because I didn’t like our tone.”

After that meeting, Rivers noted a change.

“Last year it came, you could see it, when we were on the road, guys were on the road to play basketball,” he said.

The Clippers’ stats at home and on the road were nearly identical last season. They shot 47% from the field at home, 47.6% on the road. They made 37.2% of their three-pointers at home, 37.9% on the road. From the free throw line they shot 71.1% at home, 70.9% on the road. They averaged 43.6 rebounds a game at home, 41.7 on the road.

“That was good for us,” Rivers said. “The road is hard.”

Twitter: @melissarohlin