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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS VS SPURS

May 14, 2017

Mike Brown

Oakland, California - Pregame

COACH BROWN: Before we get started, I'd like to wish all the mothers, especially my mom, Mom, I'm going to put you on blast a little bit. Her name is Jean, but she's from the south, so her real birth name is Willie Jean, so Willie Jean, Mom, I love you. Happy Mother's Day.

Q. Is Steve [Kerr] here today?
COACH BROWN: I haven't seen him yet, but he talked about coming last night.

Q. I know he's been around and seen him in practice, seemed to give everyone a boost. Would it be another boost if he were able to show up today, do you think?
MIKE BROWN: It's always a boost. I said this yesterday, he's our leader. He's the head coach. We're just trying to hold the ship down until he gets back. Anytime he can show up whether it's a coach's meeting or game, practice, it doesn't matter, you want him around, and it's good for him to be around.

Q. You're pretty steeped, obviously, in Spurs culture. You're obviously, fairly new here. Both have fostered these organizational cultures, but how are they different?
MIKE BROWN: Pop and Steve, they're the guys that basically set the tone for the culture and for laying a foundation. They have similar philosophies, but then again, certain things are different. I think they both want to have fun, but at the end of the day, Steve is probably a little looser than Pop, you know. But it bodes well for Pop's players and that organization, just like the way Steve is bodes well for this organization.

If there was one thing that I would say is a little different, it's probably that. But at the end of the day, they're about trying to treat people right, about winning. Like I said, having fun, enjoying your job, you know.

Q. I know you had the scout on San Antonio this season. It was then handed off. Was that just when you became the acting head coach? How deep into the film study had you gotten into the Spurs as the scout guy?
MIKE BROWN: We had talked about this as we went along, because when I kind of took over for Steve in Portland, I had Portland also. It was the one thing that we don't like to do is we don't want our players to hear one voice all the time, because that can get monotonous. Certain guys may get tuned out. So with me having the scout and showing film on off days and then talking to them as a head coach, and so on and so forth, it wasn't getting anybody else involved.

Steve clearly is a guy, just like Pop, but Steve's clearly a guy that wants input from everybody and wants participation from everybody. So when we found out that there was a chance we were going to play the Spurs, we kind of talked about it. So J.C. [assistant coach Jarron Collins] started preparing even before the series ended. I can't remember who was at Houston. But you start preparing for both teams, even, if not with our team, but as coaches even before the series has ended. So it was passed on to J.C. pretty early. I just did prep work to help prepare the team in general.

Like I showed the initial film coming into this series, and J.C. started doing the scout stuff.

Q. Knowing Popovich like you do, do you expect him to come in here with something and try to surprise you guys?
MIKE BROWN: Yes, he will. But he also knows that it's hard to trick people at this point in the year. They're kind of who they are and we're kind of who we are. He says this a lot. You've got to have players in this league to win, once you get to this point he specially. So we try to kind of help put them in position where they can possibly have some success, and then they've got to go play.

He knows all of our guys' tendencies. We feel like we have a pretty good handle on their guys tendencies, and now it's about playing. But he's a great coach. He could come up with something schematically to help him.

Q. Mike, I asked you yesterday, if you felt butterflies or any nerves. You said at this point not really. Now that the game day is here, do you feel anything? Does it matter that Pop is on the other side?
MIKE BROWN: Yeah, game day, you start to feel the butterflies. Especially as it gets closer to call time. It's good to see Pop on the other side. I love him. He's a dear friend of mine, so it will be fun. But I do want to (indiscernible). Not like that boxing match. Although I did like my body in that picture (laughing). That was terrific.

Q. The Spurs and the Warriors are 1-2. What type of series do you expect to see? Is this going to be a game about the big men down there in Draymond, [JaVale] McGee, and LaMarcus, and Pau Gasol on the other side?
MIKE BROWN: Yeah, it's going to be a physical series. It's going to be hard-fought. We told our guys the biggest asset that the Spurs have is they play hard. They play hard for as close to 48 minutes as anybody in this league. So we're going to have to try to match that intensity to how hard we play for the length of the game.

When you have two good teams that play that hard, it's going to be a highly contested match, not just inside the paint with Draymond and the bigs, but even along the perimeter. You know, K.D., Kawhi, Klay, Danny Green, Patty Mills, Steph Curry, they're very good basketball players in a lot of different positions where the matchups will be fun throughout the course of the series, but they're going to be tough.

Q. When you bring in Andre [Iguodala] as your early substitution, and you frequently do, it's quite a luxury with someone with that experience and knowledge of the game, are the Spurs one of the few teams who can kind of match that if they encounter with Ginobili off the bench?
MIKE BROWN: Yeah, everybody saw it against Houston. They saw how deep their bench is. Pop, just like Steve, throughout the course of the year plays a ton of guys, which gives guys confidence, not only individual confidence but it gives the rest of the team and staff confidence in whatever player we throw out there. You know, when we throw Andre in, they throw Manu in, they can go deeper than that, and we feel like we can go deeper than that, so it's a positive for both teams.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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