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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 9, 2015David LeeCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Three Cavaliers – 96 Q. LeBron James scored 123 points in this first three games. That is the most ever in a Finals series. What are you going to do to stop him and maybe trap him a little bit more, play him in double team? DAVID LEE: Well, once again, that will be up to Coach. But he's a great player. He's a guy that's got to be guarded as a team. It's not going to be one guy. I think fortunately we have throughout the course of the series‑‑ we have a lot of bodies we can throw on him. We have four or five guys that are capable. But it's going to take a team effort. It's not just the guy guarding him. It's the guys in the paint having to help out. They have shooters around that make it a little more difficult to help, as well as bigs that can finish. You have your hands full defensively, but I think that we're going to continue to make adjustments as we have throughout the playoffs in every series, and I think we're going to be fine. Q. When you're on the floor, how do you think that opens up Steph Curry's offense, and how did that impact tonight? DAVID LEE: Well, we've played together for a long time. Biggest thing I try to do, I tried to do in that fourth quarter is just get him open looks by setting good screens and rolling to the basket. Make the defense make a decision. They trapped him some and he was able to throw out and we were able to make some plays when we had a four on three on the back side, as well as they tried to switch it some. Then we could go inside on the mismatch and just try to react to what the defense was doing. But anytime you're on the floor, any of our bigs, the most important job is to make sure that you set good screens for him and Klay, and then we can all play off that. Q. You go into the fourth quarter down 17, 36‑point fourth quarter, you guys come out with a furry, never give up, a big start to the quarter, I think an 8‑0 run really quick. What was going on in the conversations and just the belief? What were the keys there to darn near win the thing? DAVID LEE: Well, it was tough. Especially on the road. To come in down 17, it's tough to try to get it all back at once. So the conversation was just to get a few stops in a row, and to be aggressive. We had a smaller lineup out there, to be aggressive and try to push the ball. And we had a couple shots finally go in that we weren't making in the first three quarters as well as we were screening on defense and got a few shots on defense. So a nice little run to start the quarter, and it put us back in contention there only down about nine or ten. Q. You go from not playing the first two games to important minutes in the fourth quarter and second half of this one. How do you switch modes like that? How did you stay engaged throughout the weekend when you weren't in? How were you able to contribute in this one? DAVID LEE: We've talked all season about this. My job as a pro is to be ready. I have confidence in myself. My teammates have confidence in me, and my job is to be ready when my number's called. There's guys on Cleveland that do the same thing. Mike Miller hasn't played in a long time, James Jones, and guys coming in and hit shots and make plays. My biggest concern was to go out there and play as hard as I can, bring some toughness, and just really be as active as possible and aggressive. I felt like that's what we really needed when I got in the game, and I just tried to do that to the best of my ability, and some things fell my way. Q. Later in the game you were playing in a lot of lineups with Draymond Green. You were playing the five and sort of sharing responsibilities there. Defensively, what kind of task does that pose for you? Obviously you're working a lot on the pick‑and‑roll on the offensive end, but I would imagine there is some difficult stuff you have to deal with defensively there? DAVID LEE: Yeah, no doubt. It's a tradeoff going smaller like that. Offensively I think we can hurt them a lot on the pick‑and‑roll spreading the floor with Draymond being a fourth shooter out there. Defensively, though, the biggest task is keeping those guys off the glass. And I thought it really took an extra effort by myself, Draymond, and the rest of the guys to rebound as a team. I think we did a pretty good job of that in the fourth quarter. The other concern, of course, is LeBron on the pick‑and‑rolls, and that was something we also navigated. So we're not going to shut them out by any means with any lineup we have. But the key is when we go smaller like that, it's to scramble defensively to make up for any deficiencies we have. Q. David, you were involved in that scramble in the last minute when Dellavedova came away with the ball. How is he able to come up with those scramble plays and emerge from the bodies seemingly every time? DAVID LEE: He made a couple. Made a play last game on the offensive rebound and made a few tonight. I don't know. He was about two steps closer, he dove about a half second before I did. He's a guy that's low to the ground and isn't afraid to put his nose in there. I think he's done some good things for them this series in these last two games. With that being said, I thought especially to end that game tonight, we really stepped up our physicality and stepped up our hustle. And that's what it's going to take. At this point there's two teams left. Both teams want a championship, and everyone's got to play with effort on both teams. So while he's done some good things, I think that we showed some signs early in that last quarter of matching his intensity and their intensity. We've just got to continue that from the start next game. Q. Coach Kerr said during his press conference that guys were kind of hanging their heads. What was the conversation to get guys from hanging their heads and back into the game to nearly tie that game up? DAVID LEE: Well, yeah, at this point there is no other choice. I mean, we can hang our heads if we were to lose the series. At this point we have to just keep pushing forward. We've been through plenty of setbacks in these playoffs. We're down in the same scenario against Memphis, down 2‑1, going into Game 4 at Memphis against a very, very good Memphis veteran team that's as good as anybody in the West. And we came out of that series, and I still have a lot of confidence we can do the same in this series. But it's going to take a great effort by all of us. I thought we showed some signs. We haven't, in my opinion, played that good of ball yet in the series. Even in the game we won, Game 1, we came out and didn't play our best. So while Cleveland's a very, very good team, I have confidence that our team can pull it together as a group, and that we still have a lot of fight in us, and look forward to Game 4. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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