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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 4, 2015David BlattOAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: Game One Q. Coach, the Cleveland Cavaliers have faced a lot of adversity over the past year, including the slow start with the trade and with the chemistry and a lot of injuries. How has this adversity helped the team to shape their character and identity so far? COACH BLATT: Well, without question, when you have to work hard to overcome and when you have to find solutions, and when you have to or are forced to literally come together in order to turn things or direct things in the proper way, you grow and you get stronger. With the improved performance comes, of course, confidence and trust in what we're doing. I think our guys have gone through several years in the course of one season in order to come to this point. Q. We know you have several guys on Steph at different times, but will Kyrie start on him? COACH BLATT: We're going to have to mix up our coverages, obviously. Steph is a terrific player and it's hard to defend him only one way or only with one player. So I'm sure he'll get a dose of different players during the course of the game and during the course of the series. Q. Back in Maccabi you had maybe‑‑ I think you were the worst three‑point defensive team last year? COACH BLATT: Where did you bring that stat up from? Q. Well, because you're a great‑‑ COACH BLATT: You guys don't know that from Cleveland. Only you could come up with something like that. Q. But you turned it around. COACH BLATT: How did that season end? Q. It ended well. But I'm saying you chose an entirely different tact. You could play two entirely different ways. But I think maybe you should speak to the ideas that you went from being a nonthree‑defending team last year to play a defense that is very intent upon defending the three. How do you come up with that for your players to change your way from one year to the next? COACH BLATT: Well, first of all, I'm going to have to check the veracity of that comment. I'm not just going to let that go. But I will say this. Last year the Cleveland Cavaliers were absolutely the worst team defending the three‑point shot in the NBA. They let up the most, the highest percentage. That you can check quickly and easily. We definitely made it a point this year to address that and try to improve in that area, and we did succeed with that. In the NBA game today, that is very, very important. Certainly doing a good job in that parameter of the game, and it's crucial against the Warriors. Q. Is it more important here than it is in Europe? COACH BLATT: Well, not necessarily. But as you said, there are a lot of ways to win basketball games. The important thing is to recognize what works for you and what helps you get it done. Q. There are 7 million people in Israel (indiscernible) six hours ago. So many articles on the TV. How does it make you feel that 7 million people are behind you? They even talked to Barack Obama about you, and Benjamin Netanyahu? COACH BLATT: Well, I like to think I justified my existence with the Cavaliers bringing them 7 million more fans, and I can't shoot like Steph Curry and I can't get downhill like LeBron James, so I'm pretty happy we increased our fan base astronomically. That's a great thing. You know, it's an exciting time for the NBA. It's an exciting time for the Cavaliers. It's an exciting time for the Warriors, and certainly I'm happy to be part of it. Q. I'm going to ask about Israel as well. COACH BLATT: If people don't notice, I'm getting questions from Israel, Russia, from Italy. We're going all over the globe because I've been spending my time over there for the last 30 years. Yes. Q. You've been in a lot of Finals previously which not all (indiscernible). Now you are really with a good team, with a top contender. Does it make a difference, or how does it make you feel? COACH BLATT: Well, it certainly makes a difference when you have LeBron James on your team. You know it's going to be hard to view any team with the kind of players that we have on our team as an absolute underdog like maybe those teams that you mentioned were. But the important thing is not what's being said. The important thing is what we do. We're here to compete for the NBA Championship and to do our very best to bring that to Cleveland. Beyond that nothing is really important once that ball goes up in the air. It doesn't really make a difference anymore. Q. LeBron's played, I would say, more in the post and the playoffs overall possession‑wise than he did in the regular season. What's that process been like, and how much could we see that in The Finals? COACH BLATT: You know, again, when you're going through the course of the season, particularly with a team that is new and is evolving, and then goes through the kind of machinations that we had to go through in terms of changes in roster and injuries, you know, you're looking for ways to play efficiently and effectively and you're looking for ways to play winning basketball. We have the great luxury of having a guy like LeBron who has such a varied and high‑level skillset that you can plug him in to a lot of different type of situations and get performance from him and, no less important, help the others to find their way, feeding off of him. We're just doing things that have made us successful and recognizing what the situations are and how to take advantage of where our advantage is, and we'll continue to do that in this series. Q. When you guys started in the Chicago series, I think that you guys were the underdogs. You lost Kevin Love, and Kyrie wasn't playing well. Now this situation that you're in right now, do you feel like this is similar to those series where it started off and you guys felt like you were the underdogs and it was something totally different? COACH BLATT: I don't really think about it too much. I have a great, great friend back in Israel who once told me people can say whatever they want, we'll do what we have to do, and that is kind of our attitude.  That's all. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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