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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS v HAWKSMay 22, 2015Mike BudenholzerATLANTA, GEORGIA: Game Two Cleveland Cavaliers - 94 COACH BUDENHOLZER: Give them credit; they've played well. Two games here, and our challenge now is to go to Cleveland and play better, get ready to compete, get ready for Game 3. Q. Past few games you'd gone with Mike Muscala in the rotation ahead of Mike Scott. Can you explain the decision behind starting with Mike Scott over Muscala tonight. COACH BUDENHOLZER: Just hopefully an opportunity to spread the court a little bit more, get some opportunities in transition and with pace. They've both played well. They're both good players; that's the hard part about coaching. Obviously, Mike Muscala's had a big impact in the playoffs, and Mike Scott also has at different times. So just a chance to maybe spread it out, get a few looks, get the ball moving, play with more pace. Some of those things are kind of probably Mike Scott's strengths. Q. It just seems in these last two games your offense is not what we're used to seeing over the course of the season. I wonder if that's your sense or if there's an issue or two you see. COACH BUDENHOLZER: I think we've got to be a lot better offensively. There's a few different areas that we need to improve in, and that will be important for us between now and Game 3 to get better offensively. We still have to be good on the other end, too. Q. Coach, you guys were getting broken down a lot in the first quarter. Did that open up the three‑pointers later, and was that a problem, the penetration that they were getting? Was that a trouble for you? COACH BUDENHOLZER: Tonight was a night when at times‑‑ you know, when you combine really good perimeter shooting ‑‑ I think they were at 64 percent at the half‑‑ with good penetration, good attack game, that's when you become very difficult to guard. So we've got to be better at containing the penetration. We've got to be better at keeping people in front of us. And then when they do kick it, we've got to be better getting out to shooters. Q. They're missing Kevin Love. Tonight they were missing Kyrie Irving, and they still basically won pulling away from a team that had four All‑Stars and won 60 games. How is that happening exactly? COACH BUDENHOLZER: I think kind of what I opened with, I think their group is playing well regardless of who's on the court. I think ultimately, all that matters is the guys that are playing. They've played well in two games. I don't think we've been at our best. So I think it's important to give them credit and important for us to figure out a way to play better going into Game 3, regardless of who's playing and who isn't playing, who did what during the season, who didn't do things. Right now we've just got to get better going into Game 3. Q. You guys assembled as good a five weeks of basketball as we've seen back in January and February. In an effort to try to recapture that, do you guys look at that film? Do you revisit that stuff? How do you draw upon that, in other words, to reapply it now? COACH BUDENHOLZER: No, you know, I don't think it's‑‑ to go back and look, it's‑‑ you know, the concepts and the ideas, there are a lot of things that really, whether we were doing them in the middle of the season, that we kind of talk about regularly and we've got to just execute them at a higher level. Things in the playoffs, it takes more. It takes better execution, better screening. You've got to do things harder. So that's in the back of your memory, and you know that we're capable of it, but most importantly is how we play going forward. I don't think we need to be looking back. Q. LeBron seemed to be able to get where he wanted to on the floor tonight. How do you work to contain him the next couple games in the series? COACH BUDENHOLZER: I think that's a big key is trying to keep not just LeBron James, but all of them in front of us. Keep them squared up better, reduce the amount of penetration. We'll see if we can get it done in Game 3. That's going to be very important. Q. Mike, I understand it's a make or miss game sometimes, but is Cleveland a better defensive team than they were during the regular season? If so, what's makes them better right now? COACH BUDENHOLZER: I definitely think that, at least in these two games, they've shown an ability to defend and do things at a pretty high level. We do need to make some shots when we're open, but I think they're just‑‑ I think it's going to be important for us to screen better and ultimately get guys open, get people, get penetration. That's the challenge of the defense; they're making it difficult. We'll see if we can be better. Q. From watching the games, it seems the two main problems the team is having is some rough starts coming out in the third period and still a real problem with three‑point shooting. You guys are about 10 or 15 percent below your average. Anything at all that you can say is causing this right now in the playoffs? COACH BUDENHOLZER: The third quarter I really can't speak to. It's hard to say. I think it is an important period. You need to come out prepared. You need to come out focused. As far as the three‑point shooting, again, there's times when the defense throughout the playoffs, they make it a little more difficult on you, and we've got to do better at getting better looks, and then we've got to make some of the ones when we are open at a higher percentage, at a higher rate than we are to date. Q. Mike, Kyle left the game with seemingly an ankle injury. Al left the game briefly. DeMarre played. I wondered what you thought about how he held up physically at the game, what you saw from him, and what you can tell us about the injuries to the other two starters. COACH BUDENHOLZER: I think physically DeMarre was in a pretty good place. Considering the injury or what happened two nights ago, for him to be able to bounce back is a real statement for DeMarre, how he takes care of his body, how much work and time he puts in with our training staff, massages, various people that, I think, allowed him not to be as injured as seriously as we all were worried. So I think physically DeMarre's in a pretty good place. Not perfect, but pretty good. Kyle, his ankle, I think it was a pretty good‑‑ I think Dellavedova or somebody kind of loose ball and landed on him or rolled into him. We'll know more tomorrow about Kyle. Again, same with DeMarre, we'll be hopeful that it's something relatively minor, and he'll be able to bounce back and play. I think until tomorrow we won't know more. Al Horford, I think similar, had a couple‑‑ he had two or three different times where he got hit in the same spot. The feedback from him after the game, I think that he's going to be okay. I think that it's just one of those things. Couple hits, couple bangs, we're hopeful that he'll be fine going into Game 3. Q. On top of their hot shooting, they seem to be grabbing tons of offensive boards; they collected more than 25 percent of their misses. How do you guys work to contain that going forward? COACH BUDENHOLZER: I think containing the ball and containing penetration will help in a lot of different areas, help reduce the three‑point shooting, hopefully reduce the offensive rebounding. We've got to be better guarding the ball. We've got to get hits and get everybody to participate. Everything that I've been seeing really for the past couple of days and all year. We've got to get it done. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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