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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS v CAVALIERS

May 19, 2016

Dwane Casey

Cleveland, Ohio: Game Two

Q. Coach, how would you describe your team's demeanor, confidence level going into this game?
DWANE CASEY: Well, other than getting spanked by 30, you know, we've been there before. We lost the first game in the other two series. They understand the moment. Nobody is dejected, down and out of it. We understand what we have to do and what we're up against. I would say it's good. I think it's focused. I think it's businesslike. But nobody is ready to jump off a building or anything like that.

Q. In looking back at the tape, how much did you feel that there were issues with the game plan and how much did you feel it was execution and blown assignments?
DWANE CASEY: Some of it was game plan. Some of the things we were trying to take away. And against a team like this, you've got to take away multiple things. We took away some things we wanted to take away, but we opened up something else. Those were the adjustments we had to make and clarify. Some of it was game plan, and some of it was execution, stopping penetration, making sure you keep the guy in front of you. So it was a little bit of both. A little bit of both.

And again, to answer a little bit more to your question, we're excited to be here. It's not like we came here as -- we earned it. We got here by winning 56 games, and we're humbled to be here. We're excited to be here. Nobody is intimidated to be here. So this is part of our growth as a program. Their program is ahead of us. It's clear, and everybody knows that. We're excited to be here and to take this step with our program and where we're trying to get to. We're trying to get to where they were last year.

Q. You've been pretty active in terms of adjusting rotations, changes to the starting lineup. I know you don't like to talk about that, but is there any reason for someone to expect that you might be changing something else?
DWANE CASEY: Well, we are. We're going to change some things, just to make sure we have a balance in certain situations with our injury, Jonas [Valanciunas] being out, and our second unit being with our first unit. We'll adjust that a little bit as far as to see where we can get a little bit more balanced into the first, into the second.

Q. How much has Jonas's injury scrambled all the rest of the things you do?
DWANE CASEY: Well, the rotation is a major thing. We already had Patrick [Patterson] in there. Now you take Bismack [Biyombo] and put him in there, it kind of takes away from your second unit more than anything else.

Rim protection, you have another rim protector who can be there at the rim if you have Jonas. We don't have that, but again, that's part of the NBA, next guy up. We've dealt with that before. That can't be an excuse. But that's how it affects what we're trying to do.

Q. With them playing as small as they are at the 5, I mean, you can't really allow yourself to wonder what would have happened, but do you wonder what would have happened if Jonas was playing this game?
DWANE CASEY: Well, yeah, I would. He still would have a good matchup with Tristan [Thompson]. That was a good matchup for him. Again, we can't think that way because he's not here, and that's the problem. We wish he was, but he's not. We have to go with the guys that are here now.

Q. There's been some nights when DeMarre [Carroll] was healthy that he really gave LeBron a hard time, and then in Game 1 it didn't work out. How much of that was scheme and how much of that is maybe his knee is still bothering him, and how much of that was just LeBron is still pretty good?
DWANE CASEY: You know, some of that is on the schemes that we tried to have. Again, you've got to give LeBron a lot of that credit, too. He had a different idea the other night. We've got to combat that with something else. Again, there's got to be a balance. You're not going to take away all the penetration. You're not going to take away all the threes. What we've got to try to do is get balance and then take care of the basketball ourselves once we get it because they had 26 fast-break points. That was a big Achilles heel for us also, to get their running game going. It got them motivated. It got them juiced up a little bit. So we've got to take care of the ball and make sure we get quality possessions and get good floor balance to get back in transition.

Q. Going into Game 1, you had played the Cavs three times in the regular season. You watched them on tape, but playing against them, this version of them, how much value was there to your guys to actually feel it, see it, and then prepare for Game 2?
DWANE CASEY: Well, this is a totally different level. It's one of those things where they're playing at a higher clip. Again, a lot is made out of the rest that -- they earned the right to be rested. We put ourselves in a position where we had to play two seven-game series. That's no excuse; they earned it. Again, they were at another clip the other night also.

Again, they earned that, but again, we had to come in and try to get our motors going tonight a little faster than we were the other night. But again, they're playing at a higher clip, a faster pace than they played in the three previous games, and they're shooting the ball a lot better. That's another plus for them, that they're a different shooting team, three-point shooting team now than they were at that time.

They were a good three-point shooting team because they still had J.R. [Smith] and [Kevin] Love, but they're making them at a higher clip now.

Q. You spoke before about your program wanting to get to the next level, and this is another step in that process. Did you worry at all about some sense of satisfaction these guys may have since this is the furthest --
DWANE CASEY: We've talked about that. After the game against Miami, that we can't be satisfied. We're excited about where we are, getting to the Conference Finals. But let's not be satisfied. We're excited. But don't be satisfied and relax, exhale. I thought we did that in the first game of the Miami game a little bit, and the other night it was a lot of Cleveland and some of that. We had to fight against that.

Again, they're further along in their building process than we are, and we're trying to get what they have, and to do that you've got to do multiple things. You've got to outwork them. You've got to out-scrap them, and we didn't do that the other night. They did it to us.

Q. In the second quarter you sat DeMarre and Kyle [Lowry], and I was curious, not to say that was a difference maker by any stretch, but in this series can you afford to have both of those guys out?
DWANE CASEY: No, but again, Kyle was tired. He had played big minutes in the last series. He was dragging. We had to give him a blow. We didn't want to, but we had to. Again, in the other series and even tonight, if we can play him, if he can go 40-plus minutes, we've got to do that because we go as he goes. But there's a time and point in the game he's got to sit down at some point, and that's when we chose to do it, and the game did turn. And we got him back in as quick as we could.

Again, it's part of our situation. We need him even in that second quarter with that group as much as possible.

Q. How much more difficult is it to make LeBron a jump shooter than it has been in years past, and is that about the spacing around him? Or does that even -- how much of that goes into that?
DWANE CASEY: Yeah, some of that is the spacing. You've got to respect J.R. Smith. You've got to respect Kevin Love. You've got to respect Kyrie Irving's three-point shooting. Some of it also, too, is his maturity as a player over the last six, seven, eight years when he was down in Miami; he's grown. He's a computer. You show him one thing one time, and he's going to pick you apart, and that's why we've got to be prepared to do a couple or two, three things to give him different looks, and even with that, it's difficult. But he's matured as a player, as most players do in this league, but he's at another level. He's calling your plays out and doing stuff like that, but again, that's his growth as a player.

Back in 2011 you could slow him, kind of could slow him down just a little bit, but today it's more difficult to do.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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