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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 16, 2015Andre IguodalaCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Six Golden State – 105 Q. MVP. Everyone was talking about your defense on LeBron, but you came out tonight and scored 25 points. What are you thinking right now after your defense and offensive performance now that you have that trophy in your hand? ANDRE IGUODALA: I'm not even thinking about anything. My mind's just blank. Enjoying the moment. Just celebrate with your teammates. I think those are the things that you remember the most in this situation. No turnovers. Good job. This has been a long ride. It's been a great season, and we're just going to enjoy the moment. Q. Can you give us an idea of what it's like for six games to guard LeBron and yet still put up the numbers that you did offensively? ANDRE IGUODALA: Exhausting. Exhausting. More mentally than anything. 82 games is a long season. You go through 82 games and you play hard. It will prepare you for the physical load, and then playing him a lot, I kind of knew how to lessen the blow, you know, or expecting it. But mentally just thinking about it every single day, during practice, after practice, at night when I sleep. My nap, I had no nap today. I usually get a nap, and I couldn't sleep because I just kept thinking about the game and what do I need to do to win, how to guard LeBron. That's what makes him arguably the best player in the world right now, because you have to put so much effort in, not trying to stop him, but trying to contain him, because you really can't stop him. Q. If I would have told you two weeks ago that you would have been the MVP, what would you have told me? ANDRE IGUODALA: I'm not surprised because I'm that confident in my game. I'm too hard on myself most of the time. I'm not surprised, but I would have bet on‑‑ I would have bet on Steph. I would have bet on Draymond. Draymond's been great for us all year and very, very high‑IQ guy. This is the type of series where he can get triple‑double numbers every night, and we saw it in the Houston series, and I knew it would carry over. So those two guys I would have bet on. I was just happy we for winning the ring. I didn't care about anything else. This is just a plus. Q. Once it became clear their defensive approach was to let you and Draymond and Harrison take the shots and they weren't going to let Steph and Klay shoot, how did you adjust to that? ANDRE IGUODALA: Well, when we play pick up in practice or we practice and it's the first unit versus second unit I'm shooting the ball a little bit more, I'm scoring. The second unit is‑‑ we beat the first unit more times than they beat us, and I think it was by a landslide. And I used to take it personal. Not just me versus Harrison because he's starting over me or I was trying to prove a point, but you're just playing basketball, and if you enjoy the game, you're going to play hard no matter what. I think that's helped us throughout the year is that we competed with one another and that helped us carry it over into the game. So starting those games in practice, it helped with being put in the lineup in The Finals. Q. Did you feel that winning the championship was going to be dependent on you knocking down those shots? ANDRE IGUODALA: That's a good question. My mind was working so many ways. Like what's going to happen if you win? What's going to happen if you lose? How do you approach the game starting? Do you come out firing? Do you let it just come to you? So for me, it was just playing my game. If you're feeling it, shoot it. If you feel like you can make a play for somebody else, just make a play for somebody else. I think that's helped me throughout my career, and it's helped my career last this long and be this effective. Because whether I'm scoring the ball or I'm not, I'm really effective in being a force on the court. Q. When you think about a team in the NBA Finals that enters with zero players that have experience in The Finals and now it's the championship team, what is the most striking characteristic of why that happened, how this team grew into a champion? ANDRE IGUODALA: Hungry. We have a lot of different personalities. Draymond's loud. Klay's quiet. Then we've got everything in between. But the common denominator is guys were like really hungry to show what they can do individually, and then we really believed in our team as a group and what we could do. But we've got some veteran guys on the team. Barbosa's been on some great teams. Shaun Livingston has come back from a horrific injury, and I've been knowing him since we were 10, 11 years old. So I know he's got that basketball blood in him. Draymond has been to Final Fours. Steph has had the pressure of having to perform night in and night out with guys going at him. Klay's had to prove his worth and getting his big contract. Harrison's continuing to get better every day and establishing himself as a starting 3 man. And then Bogut's being one of the best defenders in the league. So everybody has something they want to bring to the table and prove. So guys play for themselves. That's just human nature. But when you get all those guys together and say we're going to do it together as a team, that's an awesome formula for what we put together tonight, and that is a championship. Q. How did this team grow up during the series? ANDRE IGUODALA: We felt like they were bringing the fight to us. Game 1 was a good grind‑out battle. We snuck that one out. Game 2 we were one rebound away from winning. Then Game 3 we had a good run coming back, but they finally‑‑ they just ended the game like they were supposed to with the lead. But those first three games, they were bringing the fight to us. They were hitting us. Dellavedova was all over the place. He was diving on the ground. He was the first one on every loose ball. They were hitting us, and we were just reacting. I felt like Games 5 and 6‑‑ 4, 5, and 6 we were proactive. We brought the fight to them, and we made them adjust, if they could, to what we were doing, and it just worked out for us. Q. Andre, your coach and several of your teammates called guarding LeBron the toughest job in basketball. Why is that the toughest job in basketball, and how long have you prepared yourself for that moment? ANDRE IGUODALA: I've been preparing for the moment for 11 years now. I've seen him every year I've been in this league. LeBron doesn't have any weaknesses, or he doesn't have a glaring weakness. So you've got to pick up on the smaller things to try to make him uncomfortable. Like knowing which side he likes to shoot threes off the dribble, which side he likes to drive. One side he'll drive left more often, and the other side he'll drive right more often. So after 11 years you're just picking up all this information. I'm a basketball junky, so I watch old players. The '90s was a great era of basketball. I watched so much of that. That just helped me be a student of the game and pick up any moment. It's the 10,000 hour rule. You're just trying to master your craft. Q. Coach Kerr talked about how it was fitting that you won the MVP considering your role on this team. Did you feel it was fitting that you won the title in such a team effort, particularly with the effort from Livingston and Festus? ANDRE IGUODALA: Yeah, that's the ultimate thing. You look at how games came together, different guys won games in different ways. Tonight it was Festus. I believe Game 4 we won here it was Shaun Livingston. Like I had a I had a good night, but you look at the numbers, and Shaun Livingston was awesome for us. I think he had eight points and seven assists and a bunch of rebounds. But then Barbosa had an awesome night in Game 5 back at home, and you just have somebody stepping up every single night in a small way that helps the bigger picture. I mean, David Lee hadn't played, and he comes in Game 4, big lift for us. In the Game 3 we lost, but at the end of that game David Lee made a couple passes to me. We come back, we made a run. We were down 14, 15, and we cut it to 1, and David Lee did that for us. I think he opened Coach's eyes, like if we do this, this could help. That's when he put me in the lineup, threw Draymond in that spot D. Lee was in in Game 3, and that started happening. Q. You had an interesting career journey, obviously starting in Philly, kind of being the number one guy there, and then coming here and having to kind of sacrifice your role. Then being a starter and going to the bench. How have you been able to adjust to all of that, and how does it feel wrapping it up with an MVP in The Finals? ANDRE IGUODALA: Great feeling. I think all those years and going through everything I went through, the good and the bad, can prepare you for this moment. Being in Philly I had some teams‑‑ we were a very close group. I think we maximized our talent. That's helped me a lot here with just telling these guys, listen, I've been on teams that we've been close knit and it helped us just getting to the playoffs because we weren't the most talented, but we got there because we played so hard together. I said, you just imagine our talent and our cohesiveness in putting it together, the results that can come from that. This is an amazing feeling. We're going to enjoy this one. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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