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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 9, 2015David BlattCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Three Q. Do you believe that your team's play in the playoffs is emblematic of the philosophy "smart steal from the strong"? COACH BLATT: That's a great book by Pete Carril, my former coach at Princeton. No. Great book, though. Q. Considering that you're already shorthanded, just having the one day off, does that concern you after having two overtime games and you're already kind of stretched thin? COACH BLATT: You know, I've been asked that a lot, and fairly. There's not a lot of room for overthinking things. We're in the NBA Finals. The games are coming hard and fast. We have the objective, difficulties that we have, we all know about them. We've stood up and faced them. We know we have to get more out of ourselves than maybe even humanly possible sometimes. But that is the situation. We have a chance to do something very special, and if it requires us to go above and beyond, that's what we've got to do. That's not a matter of being concerned. It's a matter of facing up and manning up. That's it. Q. Good evening and good luck in the game, first. I would like to ask you about two of your players, about Mozgov and Dellavedova. Did you expect from them to give such a performance in The Finals? And do you believe they have the ability to carry out through the entire series? COACH BLATT: Those are two very, very character‑filled guys, players that have overachieved what people expected from them and have gone beyond places that a lot of people thought they would come to in their careers. So what they're doing and what they give us doesn't surprise me because character always wins out to me, and those are two very, very hard‑working, professional guys. Q. We've talked a lot about lineups and going small, and Steve was talking about it this morning. Just curious why end of games it seems teams tend to do it more so than any other point in the game. What is it about late in games that teams tend to go small? COACH BLATT: Well, ball handling, shooting, creative capability‑‑ in other words, creating shots because they've come so much harder at the end of games. In many cases you may want to put your five best all‑around players, regardless of position on the court. When I say best, it generally means versatility and ability to get from them the maximum out of every situation. So I think that's the reason you see it a lot. Q. You've been in a similar situation before while your team is not favored. Just over a year ago, Maccabi was not favored probably, while (Real) Madrid was ten time more favored by the local media. COACH BLATT: You didn't have to say ten times. It was a lot. Q. It was a lot. COACH BLATT: But the result is what it was, and we don't forget that. Q. It was 6 versus 60 percent. That's what I was told at least. COACH BLATT: Okay. Q. What did you learn from that experience in Europe? COACH BLATT: That what people say and what they think is not what matters. It's what you do. That's what I learned. Q. On those sets when LeBron does isolation, have you developed‑‑ can you guess what he's going to do? Have you developed a sense of that? And how many times do you guess right and what do you look for when you're looking at that? What are your thoughts? COACH BLATT: I can't honestly tell you that every in every case I know exactly what he's going to do. I do have a very high level of confidence that he's going to recognize the situation and make the right decision, whether it be to pass, dribble or shoot or to kick out and reestablish another position. That's part of his greatness is the ability to size things up quickly, to slow the game down for himself, and to make a good decision. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH BLATT:  I don't try to guess. I'm not good at guesswork. I got a multiple choice question the other day, and I went with all of the above. That was my best answer. Q. Coach, Turkish television‑‑ COACH BLATT: It's a global game, isn't it? This is great. Q. Two days from the last time you guys last played. You didn't go that deep into the bench. Do you think this game you're thinking you're going to go deeper into the bench, given the two overtime games and the players' time? COACH BLATT: It could be. We'll see what the situation calls for. There is a maximum of five games left this season. We're not playing for July or much beyond the 19th of June. We're just trying to play it the best way that we can under the present circumstances that we have. Q. Coach, due to the success that we saw on Dellavedova defending Curry, what do you think was the key on that, and are we going to see more of that tonight? COACH BLATT: Well, I didn't think and I don't think that it was one guy guarding Curry. I thought we did a good job team‑wise limiting a great, great player somewhat. You know, there is also the fact that he didn't have his best shooting night. That's part of it too. Just as when you get beat, it doesn't necessarily mean that you played bad defense. Maybe the guy makes a great shot. That's part of it also. But we're not making too, too much about a specific match‑up determining the outcome. It is part of it, certainly. But the work that we have to do against the Warriors has got to be a collective thing, and it's got to be a focused effort. Because that is a very potent offensive team, and certainly Steph Curry is a very potent offensive player. Q. Are you anticipating them guarding LeBron differently tonight and maybe doubling him a little bit more? COACH BLATT: Well, I wouldn't be surprised. It's something that we've seen and we've also thought about now. You know, they went with their particular tactic. They won one game. We won one game. How they see that, we're going to find out pretty soon. But we have faced multiple coverages against LeBron. Certainly in our last series you saw an awful lot of tilting and double teaming and various tactics to try to keep him from scoring the ball or from creating situations, and we handled it very, very well as we did in the Chicago series. So I hope, I hope that we'll be ready for whatever they throw at us, and I hope that the other guys are going to be ready to step up and do what they have to do to make those situations easier for us. Q. Obviously you count on Tristan Thompson to bring a lot, aside from his offense. But he had been a little bit more productive against the Bulls and against the Hawks scoring. Is there something you tell him or is there something he can do differently to have more success? COACH BLATT: No, just to stay with it. He's been very impactful for us all season and certainly has taken it up a few notches since Kevin went down. But there's nothing specific that I have to tell Tristan. Because he's a game animal. He gets his stuff without necessarily being a target player. As long as he's defending and rebounding the basketball and touching the ball the way that he does, and seemingly every possession, he'll find ways to score a little bit. Q. I know that some people here tend to disrespect it maybe, but I would like to ask you about your past European experience in do‑or‑die situations and what you bring to this Finals and to the playoffs in general from your experience in Europe to here? COACH BLATT: This is obviously ‑‑ this isn't about me. This is about the Cavaliers. What I bring from my experience is the fact that I've been in a number of different Finals, whether it be on National Teams, whether it be local league, whether it be Cups, whether it be European championships, I've been in a lot of these situations. And it helps me mentally prepare. But the important thing, of course, is what our team is doing. Obviously I'm a novice to the NBA Finals. That is a new thing for me. We've got a great coaching staff that I lean heavily on, and certainly a great group of players, many of whom have NBA Finals experience and success. We're in there fighting together. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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