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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 10, 2015David BlattCLEVELAND, OHIO: Practice Day Q. Wondering if you could talk about your view of the shot Delly banked in? COACH BLATT: The kid makes plays. That was a nice highlight. Q. Do you think he called glass? COACH BLATT: Did he call glass? If he didn't, he should have. Q. They talked after the game a lot predictably about using David Lee more going forward. Is that something you come into the series prepared for, or how much does that sort of change your preparation when a team maybe switches their rotation midway through? COACH BLATT: Well, we knew that that was a possibility, obviously. You try to prepare for every advent, every possibility. Them saying it, and him playing, obviously gives us a heads up. But there are a lot of options on that team. They're a deep team, and they can give you different looks than they do, and they can do different things, which they feel they have to do. That's all part of this process. That's the dynamic of the series. Q. Steve Kerr was asked before the game about LeBron the athlete and where he kind of ranks in the world in that category. And he half jokingly said I don't know if there's anyone better. Maybe American Pharoah. In that discussion, where do you rank him in terms of all sports, everything, just LeBron the athlete, in the world, obviously? COACH BLATT: The athlete or the athlete player? Q. The athlete. Amongst all athletes in the world, where would you put him? COACH BLATT: Where would I rank him? I don't know. I'll put it this way, I'd put my money on him in the decathlon. Does that help? Q. Just a quick update health‑wise on Matthew Dellavedova, where he is after last night, and Iman Shumpert's shoulder? COACH BLATT: Good news on Shump's shoulder. He had an MRI, he was examined and evaluated by our medical staff. He has a bruised shoulder and it's painful, but fortunately no serious damage, and that's really, really good news. Delly, obviously, suffered from some fatigue. I don't know whether to call it dehydration or something else, but the tank was low, and we're doing everything we can to fill it back up. That's the best way I could describe it for you. Q. To follow up on those, Coach, do you expect both of them to play tomorrow? COACH BLATT: I do, yes. Q. Have you talked to Delly, and do you maybe even limit his minutes? How concerned are you when you put him in tomorrow and what he could potentially do? COACH BLATT: I told him I was going to limit his minutes, and he said, no, you're not. Look, we've got to be realistic and keep our eyes on him and see how he recovers. He emptied the tank last night. Hopefully in the ensuing 48 hours he's going to be able to catch up and to get back up to par, so to speak, in terms of his body. But he'll be out there, and we'll just monitor how he's doing. I'm not going to come in there with a specific minute restriction, but we'll definitely be conscious of it. Q. Have you had a chance to visit with Kyrie? COACH BLATT: I did. I just saw Kyrie now. He was in our session in the locker room, and it was great to see him. He's on crutches with a cast, but he's in good spirits. We're just all hoping and wishing him a very, very speedy recovery, and a hundred percent recovery, which I'm sure will be the case. Q. LeBron has consistently talked about that he's doing everything that his teammates ask him to do and that his teammates are asking him to do a lot. What are you specifically asking LeBron to do? COACH BLATT: Everything that he's doing. Q. Usually with teams it's an either/or proposition whether you crash the offensive boards or get back in transition. It seems like you guys are doing both. How are you able to do that against the Warriors? COACH BLATT: Well, I mean, there are different tactics for that. The point is a good one, and we're doing a good job in it. I'm not going to tell you exactly what, but I will tell you that it's hard to do both at a high level of efficiency, and we're doing a pretty good job of that. Q. As a follow‑up, are you consciously trying to eat up the clock? It seems like those isolations with LeBron might not be getting the greatest results, but it actually slows the game down and gets those offensive rebound opportunities? COACH BLATT: We're trying to play in a way that allows us to be successful in this series. Whatever that means or however that looks or however it's interpreted is fine with me. We know what we want to do. We know how we want to play and how we need to play. The important thing is to execute it and to work at it on both ends of the court, and I think we're doing a decent job of that. Q. David, Kyrie and Dellavedova go back a couple of years going to war against each other in practices, at first, apparently, Kyrie was a little bit not so happy about Dellavedova and his tactics and his defense. Can you talk about the way you've seen those two evolve in their relationship and how Kyrie, perhaps, has made Dellavedova the player he is in this series? COACH BLATT: Well, when you have one guy that's the hands‑down star of the team, and then you have another guy trying to make the team, competing for his position, then you can probably expect some friction in practice. Maybe some of that existed before. I wasn't here, so I can't honestly tell you. I've seen nothing but good relations between the two of them since the day I walked in the door, but I can certainly understand where that may have come from. I think that Delly, rightfully so, has earned Kyrie's respect, and I think that Kyrie has also lifted him up by encouraging him, by giving him confidence, by talking with him, by believing in him. We played the two of them together a good bit this year also in some winning situations because of the particular skillsets that both of them possess. You have just a great relationship there between the two of them, and you want that between your starting point guard and your back‑up point guard. Obviously, right now the tables have turned and Kyrie is out, so he's just supporting Delly. But I think they've helped each other grow a great deal, and that's one of the great things about the dynamic of a team. Q. Coach, what was the moment, if there was one, when you realized that the Cavs maybe had something special in Matthew Dellavedova? COACH BLATT: When I first came and we were practicing in preparation for the Las Vegas Summer League. I've been around the block a few times, and you recognize character when you see it. You recognize guys that are team oriented and have their values and their ideals for how to play the game in the right place. You don't see it as much as you'd like, but when you do, it's easily recognizable. If you're asking me when I knew, I knew then. Pretty quick. Q. You've been around the block a few times, as you said. This question is a little out of left field, but I'm curious as to your answer. You've dealt with the media. You got second‑guessed like crazy last year in Maccabi, you got second‑guessed a lot this year in Cleveland. How is the American media different from, say, the Israeli media or Russian media you've dealt with in recent years? COACH BLATT: I didn't set him up for that question. I just want you to know that, and I really want to answer it, but I'm not going to. I'm thankful for the media everywhere because all of us are living from it, and it's great that so many people care about the game, and it's great that so many people are interested in it. It's great that so many people critique it. Everybody's got their own style, and everybody's got their own motivation. A lot of people also have their own agendas, and that's all fine. It's all part of this great ride that we're on. I'm glad that I can be a part of that too. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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