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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORS

June 15, 2016

Richard Jefferson

Cleveland, Ohio: Practice Day

Q. What's your confidence level heading into Game 6?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Extremely high. Same as it was going into Game 5. Same as it was going into Game 5. We're looking forward to coming home and protecting home court in front of our fans. I know they're excited because regardless of anything, this will be the last game played at the Q this season. So we're looking forward to doing it in front of them.

Q. Can't use that as a crutch though knowing that you have the home crowd. Obviously your energy will feed them, won't it?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: I think it will be both. I think we're going to feed off of each other. You look at the crowd that was in Golden State. That was the crowd that was there to see if they can pull it off. They came in there with the banners, with the signs. People had champagne ready to go and we were glad to go in there with the focus that helped us get a win, obviously led by LeBron and Kyrie and their performances. But we feel like we've got to come home and have similar performances to protect our home.

Q. With Andrew Bogut ruled out for the Golden State Warriors, do you think your guys will look to attack the rim a little bit more at the start?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, you don't know what situation they're going to come up with. They have Draymond Green back, one of the top defensive players in this league. Even though he's not seven foot and blocking shots, he's still very good at the rim, taking charges, making extra plays. We know that they don't make excuses. Doesn't matter if it's Draymond. Doesn't matter if it's Bogut. Whatever it is, they're going to give it their full effort, and they fully believe that they can win this game without him. They fully believe they can win the last game without Draymond. So if anything, we have to make sure that we're locked in and we're not, okay, we can just go and just attack the basket because Bogut's in there, because they're aware of that also.

Q. How much does Bogut affect the game on the inside?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, he's seven foot tall, long, athletic. He can do so much for them, and he's probably their best screener. He's probably their best screener. He's great at making plays from around the basket, and you have to be aware of him. I don't know how many blocked shots he has in this series, but he's definitely a presence down there.

So, I believe that he'll be back at some point in time in this series. Obviously he's out for Game 6. So I don't doubt with the two, three days in between that if he can give anything in a Game 7 he'll be available. [Bogut has since been ruled out for the series].

Q. After Game 3 you said you needed an ice bath after 33 minutes. After three straight games of 30-plus, how are the legs feeling and how are you recovering?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: My legs feel good. Thank God, like I said, that we had a few days in between. That definitely helps with the rest and recovery.

Q. With your offensive success, the teams' the other night in Game 5, do you expect them with Green back to maybe tilt their defense a little differently? Maybe show you different traps, blitzes?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: I really don't know. I think they're pretty confident in what their game plan is. Their game plan got them up 3-1. We were able to come out, obviously, when they're down a guy. We were able to come back and get a victory there. But I think they're still pretty confident. I'd much rather be in their position than in our position, so I don't think that they're going to change their game plan.

You know, every game you're going to tweak some things, you're going to try to take some things away, but as far as altering it to a point that you would consider a major adjustment, I don't think so.

Q. Kyrie's 40-point performance, how crucial or beneficial is it to have a guy like him compliment LeBron in terms of the team's success?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: The biggest thing for all those shots were more we needed every single one of them. It wasn't a blowout game. It was a game in which we needed every shot. They were timely shots. They were within the framework of what we were doing. It's so important for LeBron to have that extra scorer because you can't key on him. You can't double-team LeBron. You can't trap him because you have another guy. Very similar to Klay and Steph, the way they're able to complement each other makes it very, very difficult for defenses out there.

Q. You were an observer of The Finals last year. What were some of the lessons that you learned from small-ball Warriors versus the Cavs matchup?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, I think it was just so tough. Obviously the Warriors were the best team in the league last year and they came out this season and proved that what they did in The Finals and last year wasn't really a fluke, with their 73-win performance. But it was just tough with all the guys missing. With K Love, with Kyrie out, with guys that were put in unfamiliar positions. It's really tough to go back and look at that series and learn something from the Cavs' perspective. You see, obviously, Kyrie just had 41. He probably could have had an impact at some point in time in the series last year. That's not to take away from anything that they did, but there's not a lot of lessons that we can learn or kind of gather from the series matchup last year.

Q. In the second half the other night, the team's defensive concept was superb. At halftime, was that just more of a conscious effort-wise or was it something that you realized, look, unless we clean this up, we're not going to win regardless?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, we have to be extremely critical of ourselves and there were things that we felt we needed to do better from the first half to the second half. We did a much better job. I think our defensive intensity slowly wore them down. Klay hit some amazing shots in that first half. Steph got going a little bit, too. It's tough to game plan when a guy has the ability to catch and shoot from 30 feet out. That's tough because you just can't. I've played with both the guys. They're the best shooting -- two of probably the top three shooters in the history of the game. They're on the same team. They move nonstop. They're both different shooters. Klay's more of a catch and shoot, he's 6'7", and Steph is off the dribble, off the move. So there is not one set defense you can have for an individual.

We know that we're going to have to continue playing high-level defense for 46 of a 48-minute game. If not, they're going to be able to get some distance, and you don't want to play from behind.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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