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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 9, 2015LeBron JamesCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Three Cavaliers – 96 Q. In the last minutes of the game you came up with a couple steals from Steph. One was off an inbounds play, and after that steal you started pointing at your head, maybe at your temple a little bit. What was going on with that? LEBRON JAMES: No, I just seen them run that set before, and I was telling the coaching staff that I was in tune and I knew it was coming. Q. During this postseason you've had multiple guys step up aside of you and play well. Tonight it was the dynamic duo of you and Dellavedova. When you look at what you guys were able to accomplish out there, was there a time on the court where you knew that you two guys had it going? LEBRON JAMES: Well, I mean, I know one thing I'm going to count on Delly as always is how hard he's going to play. He's going to give everything he's got. His body, he's going to throw his body all over the place. And he's going to compete at a high level however many minutes he's out on the floor. Tonight it was 30 1/2 minutes, and for 30 1/2 minutes he gave everything he's got. It was great to have someone like that out on the floor that was willing to sacrifice everything for the better of the team. Q. Could you talk a little bit about your teammates accepting their roles and their defensive intensity for this game? A lot of people are equating it to like the Allen Iverson, 76ers team that went to The Finals where you're handling the bulk of the scoring, but they're really locking down defensively knowing their roles and helping you out in a great way. LEBRON JAMES: Well, we said it from the beginning that in order for us to win, we have to defend. My guys do a great job of coming out and defending. Everyone knows their role, and we all play our role to the best of our ability. We don't step outside our box. When you have that type of chemistry out on the floor, it makes everything work. Q. The other day you didn't like the suggestion that they were letting you get 40‑plus points. Tonight Steph Curry was talking about how your 40 is not the problem, that it's just coming in with a high volume of shots. I'm just curious your reaction to that comment? LEBRON JAMES: I don't have a reaction. I'm just trying to do whatever it takes to help our team win. If it's high‑volume shooting, if it's high rebounding, if it's high assists, whatever it takes to help our team win. We're out two All‑Stars, and we're out a starting center, so I have to pick up some of the shot attempts. I'm not a high‑volume guy. I don't like to shoot high‑volume shots, but it's The Finals, and it's whatever it takes. I don't have a comment for Steph. That's not my concern. What my concern is how I come out and play, be aggressive. If it's high‑volume shooting, I'm living in the paint. I'll shoot 34 shots, but I only took six threes, and one of them was a heave at the end of a shot clock. That lets me know I'm being aggressive. Q. After Game 2, LeBron, you challenged the Cleveland crowd to come out here and match the intensity that you saw in Oakland in Games 1 and 2. How do you think the crowd helped out today? Did it help motivate you guys? Obviously you came out with big intensity. LEBRON JAMES: Absolutely. They were unbelievable from the start to the finish. We fed off them, and we just tried to give it all back to them for 48 minutes. As loud as they were, they need to go home now and start soaking up a lot of tea, drinking a lot of tea for the next 36 hours, whatever the case may be, because they need to be just as loud Thursday night. So I need you guys to get those voices right. But they're going to be unbelievable Thursday night as well. Those guys, everyone, they were amazing. Q. Back to what you were talking about. The efficiency is something that's one of the few ways where you'll consistently critique your own game even in a win. Did you have to go through some sort of mind shift to kind of allow yourself to be okay with playing this way or get yourself to the point of playing this way? LEBRON JAMES: I mean, I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with it, but I'm so outside the box right now. I went seven straight seasons with improving my efficiency. Seven straight into this year, the previous seven seasons, seven straight seasons with improving my efficiency as far as shooting. But this is a different challenge. This is a totally different challenge. I've never played where two All‑Stars were out. So it's a different challenge for myself, and it's outside the box, but it's not too far. It's not far for me to go grab. I'm just trying to do whatever it takes to help. I know you guys keep hearing me elaborate on whatever it takes, but that's what I'm trying to do. I'm high‑volume shooting, but it's not like I'm going out there and I'm high‑volume shooting and I'm not doing anything else. I'm doing everything for our team to help our team win, and that's all that matters. Q. Steve Kerr said that it felt like his team lacked life those first three quarters. When you were out there during those first three quarters, did you get the sense that it was you guys sucking the life out of them? LEBRON JAMES: No, I mean, I don't think those guys lacked life. I think they came in and we just tried to put pressure on them like we've done the first three games, the first two games and then tonight. But those guys, they got a rhythm in the fourth quarter. Part of it is because we allowed them to get into a rhythm in the start of the fourth. We had some costly turnovers as well. We let Steph shake three, but some of Steph's threes were some he made in the fourth quarter, were some of the same he missed in Game 2 or earlier in the game tonight. We had some heck of a contest, but he was just ‑‑ he let them go. But for us we've just got to continue to put the pressure on them. Try to keep them below their averages. They're going to make great shots. They're a great team, great players, great coaching staff. We'll just live with the results. Q. LeBron, what you guys were able to do defensively to them, in the third quarter they only had 55 points. It seemed like you kind of took the wind out of their sails a little bit. Was that satisfying for you out on the floor seeing that you're almost able to break a team? LEBRON JAMES: It's not satisfying when they end the game with 91. We hold them to 55 points for three quarters and we allowed them to break off with 36. That's not satisfying at all. We've got a lot of film to watch tomorrow. We're a young group, and we have to learn from our mistakes. We had a lot of mistakes in the fourth quarter. I think everybody's going to remember the turnovers we had late. But it started from the beginning. We have to learn from those things. We're a young group, and like I told the guys, it's okay. It's okay. We haven't been in a lot of these situations, if any, with this group. But the best teacher in life is experience. We experienced it tonight. We're going to watch a lot of film tomorrow on ways we can get better, close out games the best way, and we'll be ready for Game 4. Q. Can you please elaborate on your working relationship with Coach Blatt? Earlier this evening he said that he's not always know what you're going to do, but he's certain that you will do the right thing. So can you please give us your side of this relationship? LEBRON JAMES: I think our relationship continues to grow every day. To have a guy like that who has been around the game of basketball for so many years, he wants the best out of his team. He wants the best for himself as well and his coaching staff and to be able to be the leader of the team. I just try to give it all back to him. My mind is always working throughout the game. Sometimes I'm able to say it verbally, sometimes I'm just thinking the game and hoping the coaching staff and players and the guys and Coach Blatt know whatever I'm doing, it's for the best of the team. And he's allowing me to do that, and I respect that a lot. Q. Given all the adversity that you guys have faced here in the postseason, when you see Shump go down, leave the game and then come back and play with what nearly looks like one arm, what's that show you? LEBRON JAMES: We just can't afford any more injuries. We just can't, especially from a guard perspective. I just thought about his shoulder. As soon as it happened, I knew exactly which shoulder it was, and I was just hoping for the best. When he came back on the floor with his shoulder wrapped and knowing that he wasn't at a hundred percent, which is his body out there, and still competing, it means everything to the team. It means everything to me. It means everything to him as well. As you can tell, he came back out there. But, yeah, we just can't afford any injuries right now. We're already depleted. Q. LeBron, is there a scarier opponent in the league than Steph when he gets going like that, especially at the end of a game? And, two, is there any concern going forward that he's found his rhythm and he's kind of found his shooting stroke a little bit? LEBRON JAMES: A scarier opponent in our league? I mean, we have some very great basketball players in our league, and Steph happens to be one of them. His ability to shoot the ball is probably‑‑ I've never seen someone that can shoot the ball off the dribble like himself, ever. So he's always keeping you off balance. Every game is different. He caught a rhythm in the fourth quarter tonight and hit some big shots. But for us we just try to continue to make it tough on him. He's a great player. He's a league MVP, and that's all you can ask. Our defense, we held this great team to 40 percent shooting. It's not just about one guy. Even though he's going to get it going, we've just got to make sure we do a good number on the rest of those guys. Q. In regard to that team defense, how much does it help during the playoffs that you've been able to dig into an opponent's tendencies in a series compared to the regular season where it's one game on to the next opponent? LEBRON JAMES: Well, the regular season can never compare to a playoff game. Just because we play so many games throughout the regular season, and you're going from city to city, players to players, different systems to different systems. You don't have much time to really get into the books and get into the tendencies and things of that nature. In the postseason you're able to kind of not get a rhythm, but know what's going to go on. Because once the playoffs start, not many teams are going to change. You've worked so many months to work a system that that's what you're going to see. For us, for our coaching staff to be able to put us in a position where we feel like this is best for us to win, as the players, we just try to go out and execute it the best way we can by playing hard, competing, making them take tough shots and also attacking them on the other end. The playoffs is definitely a great way to just lock in on a certain team and not worrying about having to fly out and be in another city here or be in another city there or see another opponent the next night. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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