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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v WARRIORSMay 20, 2016Billy DonovanOklahoma City, Oklahoma: Practice Day Q. Steven had a physical Game 2. How do you think he's looking physically in practice? BILLY DONOVAN: He's been fine. I was a little bit concerned when he kind of went down in the first half, but he was fine. He was able to get back in the game, and I think he feels good. He's gone through everything in practice, so I think he's doing pretty well. Q. His increased minutes from the regular season to the postseason, do you think that played into him having more encounters where he's going to have more bumps and bruises along the way? BILLY DONOVAN: I think anytime you're out there with more minutes there is always more of an opportunity to have bumps and bruises. It's only natural. But I think some of the stuff he's dealing with now is probably going through the long season. He was dealing with his thumb. But I don't think it's anything too serious. It's probably just something that gets aggravated that probably gets aggravated here or there. I think Steven's held up pretty well so far. I think physically he feels pretty good. Q. Have you had to hold him out of practice? BILLY DONOVAN: No, he's been fine. He's gone through everything. We haven't had to sit him out at all which has been good and he's done work after practice, so I think he's feeling pretty good. Q. It seems like you're big on putting the emotion of the playoffs to the side and as you said focusing on the truth. As you looked at the film of games 1 and 2, what is the truth in your mind about what you guys got to do? BILLY DONOVAN: The game going back and forth in the first half clearly in the second quarter to close out the half those last two minutes it got away from us a little bit. I think we were up one point and fouled a three-point shooter which led to a couple difficult shots, we had a couple turnovers and they closed the half very, very well. So being up one there with a little over 2:00, we go in the locker room down eight. Then I thought to start that third quarter, we had some defensive breakdowns and mishaps. Then obviously the lead plummeted to two -- I shouldn't say plummeted, but exploded to 20. So there were some things inside a short period of time that we needed to do a better job and clean up. But I thought there were some things that we did very, very well. We just had some moments there where their explosiveness offensively really got away from us and they went on some really, really terrific runs. Q. What did Golden State do to flip the rebounding situation in Game 2? BILLY DONOVAN: I think they did a great job. They were very, very physical. They were very aggressive. They went to the backboard. I think if you look at the stat sheet they won the turnover battle. They won the free throw line battle. Then obviously the big part for us was the rebounding, because we've been such a good rebounding team. Fifteen offensive rebounds in the game, and I think going into the half they got back about 50 percent of their missed shots. We've been a good rebounding team. We have to do a better job there. I thought they did a great job of crashing the glass and then some of those long rebounds on missed jump shots, they did a great job of tracking them down. Q. Are the early turnovers in the first quarter kind of keeping you from, not to win the game in the first, but maybe making them play behind? It seems that's a problem. BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, there's no question. I think when you do turn the ball over chances are you're going to have -- you feel heavy quarters of turnovers, generally you're not going to win that quarter. So again, we've had moments where we've done a really good job taking care of the ball. And we've had some moments where we haven't done a great job. But the consistency, and that was my point after Game 1 is we've got to play better and better each game as the series goes on. Q. It looked like Kevin had some moments of frustration in Game 2. Today he seemed to say I need to do better. I need to be better. Do you get that sense as you sort of reevaluated and said I need to get better or are there some things that you guys as a team can do to help? BILLY DONOVAN: I think as coaches you're always working on different ways to try to help different players be effective and efficient. I think for Kevin, listen, he's really the greatest scorer in this league, so there are going to be times when he's going to have to make decisions in crowds and in traffic. We've got to help him as a coaching staff try to be able to do those things. I think the one thing for Kevin is he's very smart and he's very bright. I think when he looks at film he always can figure out, okay, what's available, what's open, and what are my options? Sometimes during the course of the game when those decisions are happening so quickly, they're not as clear as they are after you go through it a time or two. Q. They have obviously a lot of versatile defensive pieces, but do you feel more than other teams they really use creative ways to use those pieces defensively and try things? BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, I mean, obviously because of their versatility I think they can go to different guys and play different people, different guys can guard different guys. We've seen a lot of different things during the course of the year, Steph's guarded Russell, he's guarded Andre. They've had situations where Draymond Green, he's guarded Kevin, he's guarded Serge, he's guarded Steven. So they have versatility where they can move a piece around and different guys can guard different guys on our team. Q. What challenge does Draymond present when he can move around like that? BILLY DONOVAN: In terms of offensively? Q. Defensively. BILLY DONOVAN: He's a very smart player. He reads and sniffs things out very well. For us I always believe that the ball movement, the player movement and finding the open man is important. Certainly I think with Draymond, his basketball IQ and his savviness is really, really good. Q. But he's not really guarding like Roberson. He's free to move. How does that mess things up? BILLY DONOVAN: Well, it doesn't really because I think in that first half for us I mean, again, we're up two, and it really had no bearing on us. We moved the ball pretty well. We shot a higher percentage in Game 2 than we did Game 1. I think that for us it was just a matter of getting good shots, creating good shots, making the extra pass and finding the open man. I think there were some sometimes that we did a good job of that, and there were some times we didn't do a good job of that. Q. On the extra passing Kevin was saying it was important that he recognizes the opportunities and gets rid of it. Then that's the first pass. How important is it for the second and third passes to follow that? BILLY DONOVAN: Well, I think it's really important. It's just, again, being able to make those quick decisions and reads. In some of those situations we've had turnovers. But I think if you look at it, the ability to keep the ball moving and find the open man, I think we've got to be able to do that. When we find the open man, however any team's guarding, once a team puts two on the ball there's always someone left available, and you have to be able to make that read, get that pass, and we've got to be better at doing that as a team. Q. Did you want to talk about finding the open man? And I guess there are ways to do that when they're playing the zone with Bogut or Draymond. Andre has to shoot more when he's open like that? Is that something you want to see more? BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, no question. We've got to get the open man. I've got a lot of confidence in Andre. We've got to move the basketball to the open man in certain situations. Draymond I think has done a great job providing a lot of help to a lot of different people. It's not just Kevin, it's Russell, it's Kevin, it's Steven. He's been able to roam around and provide a lot of different help. When he's doing that, we've got to recognize the way the floor is balanced and we've got to do a good job of making good decisions in terms of where the ball is going to come out. It doesn't always mean that Andre's going to be open for a shot. But he may be open to create an opportunity for somebody else. Q. If he's open, do you want to shoot the three or do you want to draw some sometime? BILLY DONOVAN: I think it all depends with Andre with the shot clock. If it's very, very early on the clock, I'm not so sure a three going up is the best thing. But certainly late clock, corner threes, he shot the ball very well from there. I think our feeling has always been to attack the paint and put pressure at the basket. Q. A lot of teams will go to extreme strategies like that and base it on the season (No Microphone) something goes wrong one time and they'll revert back to it. The Warriors aren't a team that does that. Does that make it more difficult? BILLY DONOVAN: Well, we've, I think this season faced a very different kind of situation with Russell and Kevin, how people have guarded them and done some of those things. So for us, from an offensive perspective, whether it's Kevin being double teamed or people pulling a lot of people over to help or running across to trap them on post-ups, we've seen different forms of that all year long. So I think as the series unfolds and our guys get more comfortable, we as coaches, I think, have to help put those guys in good position spacing-wise, and we've got to make good decisions player-wise. So I think Kevin, like I said this about Steph Curry, Steph Curry has seen every possible imaginable defense. He's been trapped. He took a face guard, denied. He's been overplayed. I think Kevin's probably been played every way in his career too. Then what you try to do is create situations where guys like that could find the open man and have outlets. Q. You talk about how well you get a shot. And Kevin was one of the leaders in that respect in Game 2. Yet he only hits five shots after halftime. Does he need to do more? Does the offense need to do more? BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, I think some of it is misleading from the standpoint that the game did get out of control. Kevin and those guys sat a good portion of the fourth quarter. He didn't get a lot of shots in the third quarter. But Kevin had 23 points in the first half. I thought we were pretty efficient offensively. We shot 47 percent going into the half. I think what happens is sometimes you focus on the things that you don't have control over. We could have done a better job the last two minutes of the half closing that out. We're up I think 1 or 2 and we fouled a three-point shooter and had a couple bad possessions. I think we came into the half with 12 or 13 assists. We're playing the right way. They're a good defensive team. They're a really good defensive team. They're a good offensive team. So you're not going to come down and score every single time. But I think what happened for us was we had a combination on the offensive end, on the defensive end at the same point in time that allowed them to blow the game open. And that's what happened. We had poor offensive possessions, they had great offensive possessions, Curry made a three, Iguodala made a great driving lay-up. It was an and one. Klay Thompson made a step back. Those things right in a row there coupled with some of the things we did on offense allowed the game to get blown open. So, again, Kevin was efficient in the game. He was 11 for 18 from the field. Then he obviously didn't -- I think he played 34 or 35 minutes. So he's been playing a lot more in the playoffs. So we need to keep getting better and trying to improve. Q. Russell played this year with Kevin since coming out on the court. I think three times this year he's got picked. Is that something you need to scrap against this team? BILLY DONOVAN: No, because he got it in the first game. We got it. I don't mind Russell doing it. We got it in the first game over the top. I'm not sure who was guarding Kevin, but we got a dunk out of it. Russell and Kevin got a good connection there. For me personally, I like when they tried early in the game because the threat of throwing it there, it's almost like maybe in football throwing the deep ball, you've got to respect it. Sometimes you're down and you have to think about the lob. It really makes the defense adjust to how they want to guard Kevin. The availability of those two guys timing-wise, I don't mind it. Certainly the pass led to something great for them. I think we were maybe in a two for one situation and it was coming down to the end of the half. Maybe at that time it wasn't great, but I do like them looking to do that because I think it does membership the defense a little bit. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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