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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS VS CAVALIERS

May 23, 2017

Avery Bradley

Boston, Massachusetts: Postgame

Cavaliers - 112, Celtics - 99.

Q. I'm curious about your own role from the standpoint of leadership; obviously with IT [Isaiah Thomas] not here you've assumed a mantle of leadership. How much responsibility do you feel and who else shares that with you within the team?
AVERY BRADLEY: Not only me but Al [Horford]. He helps our team out a lot. You know, as far as talking and trying to lead by example, just playing the right way. You know, that's all we can do. Obviously we're missing one of our leaders, and the good thing about our team, guys -- even Marcus [Smart] before the game, you know, everyone is just making sure we're all locked in and trying to help in any way we can, and if that's by leading by example or being vocal, whatever it is, we try to fill that void.

Q. Coach Lue just said you're the best on-ball defender in the NBA. What was the hardest part about being able to stay in front of Kyrie tonight?
AVERY BRADLEY: Well, tonight, credit to him. Kyrie had a great game. I got in foul trouble a little bit, and I got switched off, you know, a lot of the times. But we have to do a better job as a team at the end of the day. We understand that he's a good player, LeBron is a good player. It's not just going to be one guy that's going to stop them. It's going to take an entire team, and tonight I felt like our team defense wasn't good on a consistent basis, and that's what led to those guys scoring and getting going.

Q. Just to follow up on that, what makes him so difficult to defend in one-on-one situations?
AVERY BRADLEY: I think all the counters, and he's able to shoot the ball. You know, you can't get into him too much. You can't back off, back off him. He's a great finisher. He's a good player. He's one of the best point guards in the NBA, and you know, you can tell he puts in a lot of work in his game, a lot of respect from myself, my teammates, but like I said, we have to do a better job at defending him as a unit, trying to make everything hard on him. He definitely got a great rhythm going tonight, and I felt like we had a chance to make it harder on him. We'll watch film and figure out what we need to do better, but we will be better next game.

Q. During the first half only a few turnovers total for the whole team and then nine during the second half alone. What changed in that department, and then how badly did that hurt you guys?
AVERY BRADLEY: I think we might have had one in the first half, and then we had three quick ones, which led to baskets for those guys. That [was an] emphasis that Brad had at the beginning of the game, make sure we're getting good shots because that helps our defense, and we weren't able to, we were forcing the ball a little bit, not making the same passes we were making in the first half. And against a team like this, you don't have room for errors like that because it usually leads to buckets on the other end.

Q. You mentioned the team defense aspect; how much of a balancing act is it to have team defense on guys driving to the rim the way they are and then still staying home on some of the three-point shooters like Kyle Korver and the rest of the team?
AVERY BRADLEY: I mean, it's our defensive principles. Obviously you have to be smart about who you're guarding, but we can do a better job at the same time stopping someone that's getting going that way. Even if it's just showing your hands or talking, letting them know that you're right there beside them to give them a little more confidence to be able to guard the ball. I feel like we can do a better job at that.

Q. When Al and you guys huddled up with a couple minutes left and you were down by 10 or 11 points, what did you say with your chance to even this up?
AVERY BRADLEY: Get good shots, stop turning the ball over. He wanted us to stay together make sure we're not pointing fingers. That's a time when leadership is important because you know whenever a team gets on a run, sometimes you try to get it back in one play or sometimes you try to play one-on-one basketball, but we needed to continue to play the same way that helped us get the lead and helped us get easy baskets, and that's one of the things that he told us, and I feel like it was an important time of the game, and it definitely shows his leadership.

Q. Curious from the standpoint of effort but also just keys, you go home to Boston, what's going to be the key in your mind to getting the series to come back to Cleveland one more time?
AVERY BRADLEY: I think just taking care of home. We owe our fans a better performance, and we know that, and we're going to play hard. You're going to see a team playing hard, very hard, the entire game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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