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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS v CAVALIERS

May 18, 2016

DeMarre Carroll

Cleveland, Ohio: Practice Day

Q. Is there a trade-off if you're trying to stop one area that you have to give something else up?
DeMARRE CARROLL: Yeah, of course. That's basketball. You try to stop them in one area, you've got to give something up. But I think we still didn't come out an aggressive team. The first quarter we came out aggressive, but like I said, not to make excuses, but I think fatigue a little bit caught in, but we don't have time to be tired. We've got to keep pushing, keep grinding, and we'll be ready for tomorrow.

Q. How do you compensate for that fatigue?
DeMARRE CARROLL: Got to dig deep inside, man. We've got a lot of warriors. We've got a lot of guys out here who have chips on their shoulders, been through rough times, a lot of obstacles. I guarantee you tomorrow that our effort that we had in Game 1 will be way better.

Q. What have you noticed about this team? You guys are 6-0 coming off of losses, that mental response?
DeMARRE CARROLL: We're resilient. We're a resilient group. We've got a lot of fighters. We don't care what people say, what the media say, what the outsiders say. We just care about those guys in there and the staff. That's what matters the most to us. So we're just going to go out, man, and compete for ourselves and try to do it at a very high level.

Q. It looked like you guys came out and were trying to play LeBron [James] straight up. Is that possible?
DeMARRE CARROLL: No, you know, he's a physical beast, so it's one of those things, you've just got to try to do what you can, and I feel like I can do better, especially staying in front of him, trying to make him take tough twos. I see now they try to go straight to the post. But that's what we worked on. We worked on a game plan for that. But at the end of the day, we've just got to take ownership individually and try to stop that.

Q. What is a good goal if he's his posting up, make him take three dribbles instead of two, something like that?
DeMARRE CARROLL: Something. He's taking 10 dribbles, so I never -- I'm used to taking two and then maybe bigs will come over there and block a shot. But if he takes 10 dribbles, I'm going to use six fouls on him real hard. Put it that way.

Q. Is there any challenge that compares to playing against him?
DeMARRE CARROLL: What do you mean?

Q. Playing LeBron compared to playing anybody else you might be taking?
DeMARRE CARROLL: For me? No, he's the best player. He's the best player. I feel like he's the best player. He makes his team better. But he's a great challenge, not only a great challenge for myself but for my team.

Q. Is it better to let him shoot or facilitate?
DeMARRE CARROLL: That's the thing. I think he's a better facilitator sometimes. If you let him score, he kind of can take other guys out of their rhythm. But other guys played big last night, like Kyrie [Irving] played really big. Kevin Love hit some big shots. We've got to try to stop one or the other. You can't stop both, but you've got to try to stop one or the other.

Q. Were you guys physical in the third quarter? It seemed like you got amped up a little bit. Was that frustration, sending a message? What was going on?
DeMARRE CARROLL: Yeah, mostly, I felt we weren't playing physical like we needed. We started the game off playing a little physical, but toward the middle of the game when they went on the run, they were the more physical team, and basically we just tried to come out and say we're going to play physical, let's not give them easy layups, not give them easy shots. That's what we tried to do, so hopefully we can take that same mindset toward the end of the third to the next game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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