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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v WARRIORS

May 26, 2016

Billy Donovan

Oakland, California: Game Five

Golden State 120 - Oklahoma City 111

BILLY DONOVAN: Well, I thought we really, really battled and competed tonight at a really high level. Coming into a difficult environment, I thought we had really, really good composure. We struggled, I thought, in the first half offensively. I thought we came out the third quarter and had better ball movement. They obviously went on some runs. I thought we really hung in there pretty well. And give our guys a lot of credit for how hard they competed and how hard they played. The difference in the game was the fact that they went to the free throw line 34 times. To me, that was something that was very, very difficult to overcome.

We didn't shoot a particularly good percentage when we got into the lane, and we got into the deep paint. So I think our shooting percentage -- we've always been a pretty good deep paint-finishing team, but I think our inability to finish plays around the basket when we had a chance to with the free throws was certainly the difference in the game.

Q. That hard to score in the paint, how much of that was attributed to [Andrew] Bogut playing much more tonight than he had in the rest of the series? And I think played 30 minutes.
BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, he played well. One of the things that hurt our rhythm and flow a little bit was I thought Steven's two early fouls, taking him off the bench. But I think Steve being out there with Bogut around the basket, to your point, it does give us a chance to offensive rebound when we have a little bit of size. And I think with Steven off the floor at that point in time, I think we were small when we had to take him out of the game. But Bogut contributed, obviously, tonight to their team.

Q. You mentioned some of their runs, but the one that was most killer was that 8-0 burst when they had all their bench players out there.
BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, they had a good lift there. They went on that. It was just two baskets, to be honest with you. I think it was a three, and then a two by Livingston and a three, we called timeout and it was five points there. I think the lead went to nine pretty quickly on just two possessions. And we didn't have two great offensive possessions. It was really one offensive possession in the fourth because they started with the ball.

But, again, our guys got back in. Kevin had a chance with a shot to I think cut it to three at one point. We got back into range. We had our opportunities. Again, I give our guys credit. They battled and fought for the entire game. When they go on the road and play, it's not going to be smooth and easy. You're going to have to deal with adversity, and I thought our guys handled it very well and gave ourselves an opportunity.

Q. You got nothing inside from Enes [Kanter], but really he only had six minutes. What was behind that? Were his minutes down because of not producing or was it more of a --
BILLY DONOVAN: I think for us from a strategic standpoint, just different matchups that we're looking at it and trying to inject him in the game and give him an opportunity to be productive and kind of help, I thought he had some opportunities. Even the last couple games where he's been in position to grab a couple offensive rebounds and he hasn't been able to quite hold. He's had a couple plays around the rim that he hasn't been able to quite finish. But I still have confidence in Enes and still feel like he can have an impact. But for us looking at different matchups, that make sense for him where he can be effective is important, too.

Q. Just wondering how do you explain the fact that there's been such a free throw discrepancy for the home team? Except for Game 1, I think, every game has had the home team significantly lead in free throw attempts.
BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, I don't know. I really don't. Again, we're a team, I think that at least for us, I can only comment about us, we've always been a team that's gotten to the free throw line at a very, very high rate over the regular season if you look at it. But certainly the discrepancy tonight for free throws, for whatever reason, that was really, to me, the difference in the game.

Q. The last couple of days you've been talking about not counting Steph Curry out despite reports of him being less than a hundred percent. What's going through your mind as a coach tonight when he goes on that 7-0 runs in the second quarter, starts to take over the game, to end the game? How do you combat that?
BILLY DONOVAN: I said this before. I think one of the things that people were talking about was his shooting percentage or Klay Thompson's shooting percentage, and is it all attributed to our defense. And I hope I was being fair. I said, no, I've seen these guys make really, really hard shots, and there's been times when the ball doesn't go in the basket for them. It's not always attributed to our defense when they don't play well. We hope that we can get a hand up, but the reality is this, once the ball leaves his hands and once it leaves Klay Thompson's hands and once it leaves Durant's hands, once it leaves Westbrook's hands, all bets are off. There is nothing else you can do. So you're not discouraging the ball from going to the basket. Once those guys get it off, it's off. Now really you're left at the mercy of the ball going in or out of the basket.

So, yes, you've got to try to challenge those shots as best you can, and make them as difficult as you can. But when he's making those kind of shots, you don't get emotionally even involved in that. That's who he is, and that's what he's done, and that's what's made him a very good player. I think when you look at a guy like Russell or Kevin make those kind of shots, it's the same thing. It's only one basket, you know what I mean. So you've got to be able to move on and move past it, and just stay the course in what you're trying to do.

Q. What did you think of the ball movement, the rhythm on offense, shot selection, everything?
BILLY DONOVAN: I thought the first half it was not great. I thought we had some opportunities to drive and kick. I thought in the second half it was better. You know, we did a better job. We shot the ball well from the three-point line, and I think that was an indication of the fact that when we got downhill they converged and when we kicked the ball back out, we generated some three-point shots. We made 13 threes and shot a really high percentage from the three-point line. I thought maybe a little bit in the first half we had some opportunities to do that. We did it in the third quarter, and it got us back in the game. But it's something we've got to keep on doing to make a point of emphasis of doing that. Because when you're playing against a good defensive team, they're generally going to take away first and second option. Sometimes you've got to get into a little bit more movement.

Q. I think you shot 6-for-26 maybe in that first quarter, and then you elected to go with Anthony Morrow and he came in and knocked down four shots. Was that something just based on the shooting percentage that you were dealing with at the time that you felt you had to put him in early?
BILLY DONOVAN: No, not really. I think what we were dealing with was we had some foul difficulties with Adams. Dion Waiters, he had some fouls, too. So we kind of moved pieces around a little bit. Wanted to create a little more spacing. I felt like with the way they were converging on the paint that we could maybe space it and generate a couple shots for Anthony. But I thought he came off the bench and gave us a really good boost. His points in the first half really helped us.

Q. What do you think going forward now? You getting to back home, another chance to close things out. Coming off this game, what do you feel about your team going forward?
BILLY DONOVAN: Well, again, it's a series right now. We put all of our emphasis and all of our effort into tonight to play the very best we could. There were moments I thought we played very well. Moments we could have played better. Travel back, again, try to continually evolve and get better from this. Find ways that we need to improve, things that we need to do, and then get ready to play again for this next one. Get ready to play Game 6.

Q. You know the controversy of course Draymond's been in the last couple of days. The first half he seemed to be in some sort of a daze. He gets the technical, and then starts rebounding and blocking shots. How much of a factor was he?
BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, I mean, he's a good player, and I think he helps their team. But I think the one thing that makes their team a good team is they're a team that has a lot of pieces that complement each other very well. He's a good player, so he's going to make plays that impact the game at different ways at different times. He can do it with his passing on offense or as you just mentioned, his defense.

Q. Your small lineup that was so good in Oklahoma City was not all that effective tonight. What do you think was the problem with that particular lineup?
BILLY DONOVAN: Well, I really thought offensively we've been really, really good. I didn't think it was a struggle for us on defense. I thought we were okay there defensively. Because I think we've got enough pieces to move around and do some different things schematically against them. I really thought that offensively we struggled really that whole first half in particular. We had a couple good moments, but we were really getting downhill. We were penetrating. I thought we needed to move the ball and generate some more open looks than we did. I think if we had done that, maybe it would have looked a little better.

This is my point, sometimes you get into these plus-minuses on these lineups right now, and I'm anxious to go back and really break it down, well, why wasn't it effective? What was the reason it wasn't effective? From not seeing the film, that's the first thing that stood out to me at least sitting over there for the first half is I just didn't think that we -- I thought we did a great job attacking the paint, attacking the basket, just those split-second decisions of whether or not to try to go finish the extra pass is going to be important.

Q. When you had to eliminate the Spurs, a team that had so much success over the years, and now you're having to do the same against a team that won 73 games, how do you go about trying to demystify the opponent and get your guys to focus in on the details, the execution, and not so much the mystique of who you're playing and what they've done?
BILLY DONOVAN: Well, like I said before, we're playing against a terrific team and we have great respect for them. This series has made us better. It's helped us improve. It's helped us grow and get better. We're in a series right now, and it's on to the next game. We'll have to go back and regroup, and really prepare as well as we can tomorrow at shootaround and try to get ready to play again.

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