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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS v CAVALIERS

May 22, 2016

Richard Jefferson

Toronto, Ontario: Practice Day

Q. What seemed to be the mentality after the game last night? Do you pass it off as just a bad night?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: No, there's a lot to learn from that night. We have a lot of respect for their team and how they play and how they've played at home all season, so we look at it from a perspective of what can we do better. Looking at the film that we're about to watch, I think we all feel like there's a lot that we can do better. But you give them credit, they made all the plays that they needed to to get the win.

Q. I know you say there are a lot of things you guys can do better, but could you also chalk it up to, hey, we missed shots, but we're moving on and keep it simplistic?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: If you want to get to where we want to get to, you don't chalk anything up to just missed shots. You have to have the ability to win games when you're not shooting the ball well. If we followed our game plan to the T and they beat us, then you might want to chalk it up to that. But we feel, like I said, that there were some mistakes that we made -- and they made mistakes, too, it wasn't one-sided -- but we look at it from a perspective of we have to get better. These are the things that we want to accomplish and these are the things that we need to do to improve going into Game 4.

Q. I know you guys haven't seen the film yet, but the second unit for you guys has been so good, and last night, like everything else, it didn't work out so well. Was there something specifically at the start of those two quarters that wasn't happening?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, like I said, they made the plays that they needed to. There was one mistake that I made. I tried to get Delly [Matthew Dellavedova] to switch on something and I shouldn't have, and Terrence Ross hit a three. Our second unit has a very small room for error. When I talk about making the plays that they needed to when they needed to, that was the one shot that Terrence Ross hit. He was 1-for-5 in the game and it was based off a mistake that we made, an error that I shouldn't have done. You give them credit; he hit a big shot over the course of that run that kind of helped put our second unit down. But it was avoidable, and it was something that shouldn't have happened, and we haven't been making those mistakes.

The first play of the game, we go for a pump fake on DeMar DeRozan. This is something that, again, hasn't happened over the course of the season. There wasn't anything that was new. There wasn't anything that happened over the course of the game because it was the first play of the game. So you look at it from a perspective of, yeah, we missed shots, but there are also things that were avoidable. There were miscues and missed plays from the top on down that we felt like we can improve on.

Q. You played for a lot of head coaches during your career. What is it that specifically stands out to you about Ty Lue, and how is he different than any coach you've ever played under?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: I would say that he keeps his cool probably a little bit better than almost any coach. He has a very calm demeanor. Every day, he's just like, Man, we're just playing basketball. That's all this is. He definitely challenges guys. He knows his stuff. He's on top of it like a lot of coaches. But I think his characteristic, kind of like Pop [Gregg Popovich] has the ability to lose his brain but still keep control, I think T-Lue, his ability to keep calm under intense circumstances is definitely a trait that has boded well for him.

Q. Why does that calmness work well with this group in particular?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: I think because at times we can get frantic. I think LeBron [James] is emotional. Kevin [Love] is emotional. Kyrie [Irving] is emotional. We have a lot of emotional guys that want to win. So to have a coach that's kind of that counterbalance of, Hey, everything is going to be all right, we're fine. But at the same point in time, he's intense. That's not taking away from his intensity. But he's not someone that gets rattled or someone that like comes in and panics at halftime. That's not him.

I think it's a good counterbalance for our team.

Q. Was that his message at all last night: We're fine?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: No, his message was more along the lines of we need to do things better. It was never about the streak. The streak was great, but I pointed out to somebody when we were in Detroit and Kyrie hit that deep corner three and Swish [J.R. Smith] hits that crazy turnaround from 30 feet, if those shots don't go, we might lose that game. So it wasn't about the streak. It was about how are we playing. We'd been playing good, consistent basketball for the last month, and last night some of it was what they did. [Bismack] Biyombo made some great plays at the rim, blocking some shots. Some guys hit some shots that were a little bit uncharacteristic of their game, and so you give them credit. That's not to take anything away from them. But we more look at it as about us, it's not about them.

Q. With all the success you've had this postseason, with some of the less experienced guys, can they get some value from a loss?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, so what's your definition of less experienced?

Q. Not as many years as you.
RICHARD JEFFERSON: As me? Well, there's that. That's everyone. (Laughter.) I am the oldest man on our team. I am the oldest guy.

But I look at our team, and you look at Kyrie, Kyrie has played in the Olympics; Kyrie played in the NBA Finals, although it was just one game. Kevin, he's been around this league for a long time. We have a lot of experience. Channing Frye has been in the Western Conference Finals. Swish has been in the Western Conference Finals. [Iman] Shumpert played in The Finals last year. Delly played in The Finals last year. I wouldn't say that our guys have less experience. I think it's just more about us as a group learning from this process of this year. I think as we continue in this series, there are things that we're going to need to improve on that were definitely pointed out last night.

Q. What kind of dimension does Channing add kind of behind the scenes with his sense of humor, especially with you and K-Love?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: It's tough for him now because he's the second funniest guy on the team (laughter). I think for Channing, he's just happy to be here more than anything. I think missing the playoffs the last couple years in Phoenix and then going down to Orlando for two years where he was kind of the vet and had to be serious all the time to try and keep the young guys in check, that's kind of the role you play when you're an older veteran. For him to be able to come here and just be himself and let his personality show and be a part of something, you can see how happy he is. I think that's pretty evident to everyone that's kind of been around our team since he's been traded here.

Q. I don't know if you know, but before the game, he accidentally put your jersey on. If you would have saw that, would you have --
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, it's tough because we've known each other for so long. He's wanted to be like me for years. (Laughter.)

He wore the same shoes as I did last night. Some people picked up on that.

But yeah, Channing just gets locked in on the wrong things at times, and he put on my jersey. The problem is he has a sweating problem, so I was just glad that he didn't have it on for more than just a few minutes because then it would have been this whole issue of hygiene. It makes it a lot tougher when that happens.

Q. Richard, clearly, the loss has affected the psyche of this team? (Laughter.)
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Yeah, yeah, it's tough because you want to keep that balance. You want to keep that balance, and we are -- trust me, we were not in the mood that we wanted to be in last night. A lot of us all went out to dinner together, and that's the first time in a month the dinner conversation wasn't joyous and excited and having fun. It was a night where we were just kind of talking about the things that we needed to do. We were trying to keep our minds off of it, but you could see that everybody was a little off.

We have a lot of respect for Toronto, so it was never, We're going to sweep them. We didn't go into the Detroit series thinking we were going to sweep them. If anything, once we won our first two games and we were able to go get a third game, then it was like, Okay, let's try to close this out so we can get some rest. That's always been our focus. We want to get as many wins as possible just as quickly as possible, just like they want to get as many wins as they can as quickly as possible. They know that going seven games definitely hurt them going into the next series. When they had to play seven against Indiana, they know that that hurt them going against Miami. Seven games against Miami, there was a fatigue factor in the first two games for them in Cleveland. So we all understand the benefit of closing teams out and trying to get rest.

Q. People who are around you guys all the time saying that knowing this team, that this group has a lot more joy just in general now than it did six months ago. What is responsible for that other than the wins?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, I don't want to take all the responsibility for that and all the credit. But no, I just think the group of guys that we have here and guys have a little bit better understanding of their role and what's expected of them, and how to be successful. I think last year, not being here, but from I hear, last year they were kind of trying to navigate things and figure out, you have a brand-new coach, you have a bunch of stars that are all put together, tons of expectations, and everyone trying to figure it out. This year I think it was a little bit easier for the guys to kind of step into their roles and keep it going. Obviously we had a coaching change this year in the middle of the season. It just took us a little bit of time, even getting Channing in here, who is a big part of what we do. There's been kind of an evolution that's been going on with this team over the last six months. I feel like the last 30 days or so, we've actually been who we need to be consistently.

Q. When you left that dinner last night, had the spirits perked up?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: No, no, the spirit was still pretty -- down is not the right word. I think disappointed. Not in the fact that we lost, but how we played in the loss. It's not about hitting shots. We let Biyombo dominate the game. Like I said, first play of the game we go for a pump fake. I made that mistake on Ross. You look at it across a 48-minute game, there were a ton of mistakes that we felt like could have been avoided. But that's probably what we were most disappointed in, that there were mistakes that could have been prevented that helped them get momentum.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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