	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v WARRIORS

May 28, 2016

Billy Donovan

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Game Six

Golden State 108 - Oklahoma City 101

BILLY DONOVAN: I thought we generated some very, very good looks. We had a tough time, I thought, in the first half making shots. I think it was fortunate for us, I think they probably had some difficulty too making some shots. Then I thought in the fourth quarter, obviously, the performance by Klay Thompson and how well he shot the ball. Then I felt like we didn't do a great job coming down the stretch, and I think we've made such great improvements coming down the stretch in terms of just on both offense and defense of doing a better job of executing and that really wasn't -- hasn't been us the last month and a half. I thought we got a little stagnant coming down the stretch.

Then I thought us defensively, we were a little bit late, they made some tough shots, and made some plays.

But a seven-game series, I'm excited. I think our guys are, too, about the opportunity to play again.

Q. Particularly the last two minutes where you really didn't get a shot off, much less a good one. What happened to the offense in those last two minutes?
BILLY DONOVAN: I think a couple times we got into some late-clock situations. I think on some of the switching, we needed to have better awareness rolling back. I think some guys when they did switch had some opportunities to kind of go; we didn't. That happened twice on the side out of bounds plays, and maybe I needed to do a better job explaining that in the timeouts. But I also thought like in the half court I just didn't feel like we ran our offense with the pace and the tempo that we needed to run it. I thought we kind of got into it a little bit slowly. When I say slowly, in terms of we got the ball where it needed to go, but it never really kind of moved from there. And I think we've done a good job, and I thought we made some really positive strides, over the last month and a half or since the playoffs started, but I thought we got a little stagnant offensively, no question.

Q. Tough game. It's not a Game 7, but certainly you didn't want to go back out West. What was your message to the team when you got in the locker room? You know why you lost, but what is your message to them about Game 7?
BILLY DONOVAN: I think a couple things looking at the game. We defended, I thought, really, really well in the half court. But we really got hurt at the three-point line, and we got hurt on some long rebounds. Obviously it's really, really hard to overcome 21 three-point shots that they made. But I also thought our guys gave great effort on both ends of the floor.

But I think the opportunity to go back and play again is what I'm excited about. I think this group just being around them has been a pretty resilient, tough-minded group in terms of being able to bounce back quickly and going out and play.

Q. Coach, Kevin [Durant], 10-of-31 from the field, obviously second straight game he's not shooting particularly well. What did you think of his shots tonight, especially some of the ones he took there in the fourth quarter?
BILLY DONOVAN: Well, I really thought early in the game he got really good looks. He had a couple drives to the basket he didn't quite finish. I thought he had a couple good looks from three. He got the ball, I thought, in some really good areas of the floor. You know, again, where he caught the basketball, sometimes I think for Kevin with as much as he gets -- I'm not using this as an excuse -- but grabbed and held and he kind of breaks, sometimes putting your head down and driving and creating is almost like the next best thing there.

But I just didn't feel like at times collectively as a group just with the execution part of it that we helped him from screening angles and things like that, and things we were trying to run. I thought Golden State was able to blow off some of those plays, which made it difficult to now he got caught with the ball, and we just didn't help each other enough in those situations in my opinion. Just sitting from the bench. I'll maybe have a different pulse tomorrow watching the film. But that's what I felt like.

Q. How much of this was simply a matter of these guys are the defending champs, been there, done that, and even though your guys have won some big games, Golden State seemed more prepared or came through in the clutch more than your guys?
BILLY DONOVAN: Yeah, I said this before. I was getting asked questions about what are we doing against Steph Curry and Klay Thompson? And I said from the beginning, they make shots. And that's what happened. Klay Thompson made a lot of shots tonight. Give him credit, and some of those shots were closely defended, some of those shots were from deep. And you can do that.

Now we did have some breakdowns. I actually thought Steph got some really good looks in the first half that he did not make. I thought we got bailed out on some of those. I also thought that Kevin probably bailed them out because I thought he had some looks too, and I thought Serge [Ibaka] had a few good looks. But the ball didn't go in the basket on a consistent level for both teams in the first half.

To your point, listen, they just hopped up and knocked down shots. It wasn't like Steph was just going one-on-one, Thompson was going -- so those guys were creating and making plays coming down the stretch. And they made big plays. I think for us coming down the stretch there, I thought we got a little stagnant. I felt like we were moving away from it, but we got a little stagnant there.

Q. On that point as well, you have made just three three-pointers the whole game, K.D. and Russ didn't shoot that well. Missed 10 free throws as a team. How frustrating is it to do a lot of the other things well but you just don't make enough shots to win?
BILLY DONOVAN: You could take three or four plays coming down the stretch that maybe you wish you could have back. But the reality is, I think the stat sheet is a really good indicator of how hard our guys played. What I mean by that is you give up 21 three-point shots to three. You miss 10, like there are some things that happened on that stat sheet there that are really difficult to overcome, and we kind of were hanging around there and giving ourselves a chance. But those three or four plays coming down the stretch, yes, probably we'd like to have had them back and wish we could have done something different with them.

But the same point we were in an uphill battle in some of the stuff that was going on for them. To me that's just an indication of who they've been as a team winning 73 games. I give our guys a lot of credit that we've been able to play toe to toe with them. I think that's why there is some level of excitement from our guys about playing again. But to your point, you go 13 percent from the three-point line and they go 47, that's a huge discrepancy.

Q. 44-plus minutes for Kevin and Russell. Did you feel fatigue was a factor down the stretch? They played a lot in the series.
BILLY DONOVAN: It may or may not have. I mean looking at the stat sheet, Curry played 41, Thompson was around 40, Russ was 44, Kevin. It could have been. Probably ask those guys. I took Kevin out in the first half. Took him out in the second half a little bit. I definitely wanted to give him a rest because I played him the whole first quarter. I wanted to give him a break there.

But I didn't think so. Those guys seemed pretty good. I thought when I got Kevin -- I thought Kevin was looking a little bit tired there to start the fourth, so that's why I wanted to get him out. I think it was right around the 8:59 timeout we got him out. But I felt like they were okay.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297