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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 8, 2016Stephen CurryKlay ThompsonCleveland, Ohio: Game Three Cleveland 120, Golden State 90 Q. Stephen, you got off slow tonight. Was it something that they were doing to you or was it just one of those games? STEPHEN CURRY: Unfortunately, it was all me. They were playing aggressive defense and they came out with a big punch. I didn't do anything about it or play my game, and for me to do what I need to do to help my team, I have to play a hundred times better than that, especially in the first quarter, to kind of control the game, and I didn't do it. Q. I thought I saw Steve Kerr asking you on the bench, "Are you okay?" What did you tell him? Are you okay? STEPHEN CURRY: I'm fine. We're in good shape. I mean, it's not the way we wanted the night to go, myself included, but glad we obviously took care of home court so that we're still in a good position. Obviously it's a series, and they did what they're supposed to do, took care of their home court. But we have a great opportunity on Friday to keep control of the series, and that's going to be a challenge for us. Q. Are you starting to get worried that you haven't shown an MVP-caliber type of player that you can be in the series? And question number two for Klay, who is to blame for tonight's loss? STEPHEN CURRY: No, I'm disappointed that I didn't do anything to help my team win tonight. It's not about living up to a certain expectation other than the one that I have for myself, and I haven't done that, or I didn't do that tonight, and I've got to be better. KLAY THOMPSON: We're all to blame. We win together and we lose together. Obviously the starting unit has to be much better. We lost the game in that first quarter, and we can't let them get out to a 33-14 lead. Give credit to our bench, they did a tremendous job of finding us back in it. But if it was a 10-point game rather than a 19, it's a different story. So that's on us. We're going to come out much better on Friday. Q. Klay, on the play where you ran into Mozgov or his knee got there, what was your interpretation of what actually happened there? Because it looked like a pretty good collision? KLAY THOMPSON: I didn't get it. I don't know. I'm guarding Kyrie, running full speed downhill, I just don't know who is trying to set a pick on me in the middle of the key. If it's on the perimeter, I understand. But didn't make sense to me. Obviously didn't feel good. But I'll be all right. Luckily for us I'm going to take the day off tomorrow and get healthy. But it's The Finals. Nothing's going to keep me out of it. But I re-watched it. I'm just confused why he's trying to set a screen in the middle of the key when we're both running full speed downhill. It seemed kind of dirty to me. He stuck his knee out too, but, you know what? That's basketball. Q. When a team wins a game real easy you hear a lot about, you try to move on. You don't get too wrapped up in how good it felt. Does the same kind of apply after a night like this, or do you just sort of try to extract more fuel from a big loss than you might necessarily when you win a game by a lot? STEPHEN CURRY: We've been in situations like these before where you have a night that just doesn't go your way from start to finish, and for us, we've been able to bounce back pretty quick because we can turn the page and understand, like I said, we're still in a good position. So like Klay said, I think we understand why we lost that game. It was that first eight to ten minutes where they came out with a huge punch and we didn't handle it well at all. Basically lost the game in that stretch. From then on, we played pretty tough and gave ourselves a little bit of hope in the second half. We had only an 8-point deficit, but then it slipped away. If we could shore up that first punch that they're going to throw, especially with the home crowd, home energy, we'll be in a good position. Q. To follow-up real quick, LeBron gets asked a lot about when something doesn't go right for the Cavs, he gets asked a lot about, do you feel like you have to take the game over, blah, blah, blah. How do you try to avoid that mindset? Friday will be a big game, obviously. It's The Finals, Game 4. But do you ever go into a game thinking I've got to get going early? Do you ever have that mindset? STEPHEN CURRY: I've just got to be aggressive and play better, and be more assertive in my scoring positions and my playmaking positions on the floor. Yeah, there's a sense of urgency knowing how big Game 4 is, and I need to be ready. Q. You guys have won more games than any team in history, but half of your losses are of these kind. Why do you think you have so many of these Murphy's Law games where nothing goes right? KLAY THOMPSON: I mean, I don't know. I know it didn't go right tonight, but it's hard to reflect on all the times we got blown out. I think most of it's just energy, just matching that team's energy. They were hungrier than us tonight. There's no excuse for us. But that's all it is. I know we're not going to make every shot, obviously. We're going to have bad turnovers. But if we play with great energy and effort, we won't see another 30-point loss like this. Q. Steph, Steve Kerr mentioned a couple back doors that got behind you early. Do you think you were mentally into this game? Do you feel like you were approaching this game with the same mental sharpness you usually do? STEPHEN CURRY: For sure. I'm not a front runner when it comes to having a 2-0 lead and doing anything different to prepare for games. Just in the first half I had a couple lapses where I didn't follow the game plan, and Kyrie gets an easy lay-up, gets his confidence going, a couple of switches where I didn't hear the guy behind me talking and being quicker with my reads in that situation. So I obviously take the blame for that. But nothing about my preparation for tonight mentally or physically was different. It's just didn't go out and execute as well as I wanted to. Q. Also, Steve said he took you out in the second quarter after one of those turnovers to say something to you. What generally did he say to you? What was that? You almost never get taken out for performance. What was that like? STEPHEN CURRY: I would have done the same thing. He's trying to get it some life and figure out a way to maybe get me going. It was a short talk, but it will carry over to Game 4, for sure, with the way we'll start the game. Q. This is very similar to a year ago from the standpoint, different in as much as you came in 2-0, and not 1-1. But you had a real slow start a year ago. I think you had three points at halftime, something like that. But you did find something late in the fourth quarter, brought the team back and made it kind of scary for the Cavs last year. Weren't able to get that done this year. Are you able to carry something over to the game? Is it a whole new start? What do you and Klay have to do to create looks, get better looks and get yourselves going the way we're used to seeing? STEPHEN CURRY: Not turn the ball over and be more assertive. In the second half, the way they were pressuring on the paint, got into the lane, made a couple lay-ups, we were more precise with our screening and cutting and got open looks. I think the way Klay came back after he got hurt and came back in the game, he got into the paint. He made some great one-on-one moves to get free. Obviously knocked down a three to keep the momentum going. So that's the way we have to play in the first six minutes and not wait for them to throw the first punch or be on our heels. And that will be the adjustment, if there is one for Game 4. Q. Klay, you just said they were hungrier. After Game 1, Game 2 I heard J.R. Smith and Tristan say you guys were hungrier. Why is it so tough to keep that hunger every game? Because this was a 63-point turnaround from Game 2 to Game 3. KLAY THOMPSON: Yeah, at this point it really isn't that hard, you've just got to give them credit. You can't downplay what they did. They came out with more energy than us. We have no excuse for it. I'm not going to sit up here and lie to you and say we did this wrong. But we've just got to learn from it. The best part about this team is we responded well the whole year, and we've had a bad history of Game 3's, which is unfortunate. But luckily for us a golden opportunity still to go home up 3-1, so no time to sulk. I mean, me and Steph haven't really shot the ball as well as we want to. That's all right. We're still up 2-1, and law of averages, it will all even out. Just got to keep the confidence high. Q. What is so difficult to try to win Game 3 since these Playoffs? Because I remember you guys lost all the Game 3's on the road. Is really the energy's not there or just the home court hits you really hard? STEPHEN CURRY: I mean, the Playoffs are hard. It's a tough grind to win a championship, and we understand that and we obviously want to play perfect basketball, we want to win every game, but it doesn't happen that way. But we hope that the better team will show throughout the course of the series and that's our mindset. We would have loved to have been up 3-0 and have a chance to win it on Friday. Doesn't go our way. How we bounce back on Friday will show our heart and our kind of soul about winning. This is hard. Got to embrace the challenge. Q. Steph, Klay had mentioned the Mozgov play maybe crossing the line and being a little dirty. You seemed to be getting knocked around out there, too, tonight. Is their physical play getting you out of rhythm and preventing you from getting to your spots? If so, how do you counter that? STEPHEN CURRY: I mean, make sharper cuts. Maybe get the ref's attention a little quicker. But you can't go into games worrying about getting calls. They're going to play with a certain physicality and we have to do the same on both ends of the floor and not worry about if we're going to get a call or not. You've got to finish plays. You've got to get open. You've got to not let them do anything to take you out of your spots. In the second half we did a better job, which we'll carry that over to the first half on Friday. Q. There was a timeout in the third quarter it looked like Draymond had some animated words for the team. Was that the right time for that, and what can you tell us about his message at that time? STEPHEN CURRY: It was a moment where it was a 20-point lead or something like that with 18 minutes left in the game including the fourth quarter, and my message was to stay together and understand -- we had a chance to maybe come back in this game, but find ourselves as we finished out the game because, you know, we're still in a good position. And he chimed in, and obviously wanted to make sure our focus was on winning this game and giving it all we had and fighting. So it was good timing for sure to keep us locked in and understand you've got to find something down the stretch of this game so that we can carry some good mojo over to Game 4. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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