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NBA FINALS: CLEVELAND VS GOLDEN STATE

June 2, 2017

Tyronn Lue

Oakland, California: Practice Day

Q. I know you guys watched film and just got out of it, and maybe you watched it last night, too. The first question is always something like what stood out, but do you focus more on how poorly you guys seemed to play instead of how well the Warriors played? How do you look at it?
COACH LUE: We have to focus on the things we can do better. Of course we didn't play our best game, and I know we'll play better come Sunday. But we have to take away the easy baskets. I thought we really did a poor job of limiting their easy baskets. I thought we did a poor job of taking care of the basketball, and they were able to get out in transition and score easy baskets.

We talked about that coming into the series; that we can't turn the ball over 20 times or give those guys 20 more shots than we have. So our half-court defense was solid, holding them to 42 percent shooting, but we can't give them 20 extra shots.

Q. If you look at the box score and you see Tristan, JR, Korver, and Deron Williams, the four of them contributed three points, I would guess that you would agree that you can't win with that happening. Why were they so out of the flow, and what can you do to get at least some of them involved?
COACH LUE: Well, we have to do a better job of playing with more pace, attacking more. They did a good job of switching out on pin-downs. So of course Korver is not going to come up on pin-downs and things like that. We have to do a better job of getting those guys shots. But if we play with pace and we're attacking the basket, then that will help open up shots for those guys.

Q. In terms of what you saw on film, particularly with the turnovers, was there a common theme or common problem with all the turnovers last night?
COACH LUE: I thought that you can credit some of it for their defense because they're a good defensive team. But some of them were unforced turnovers, which led to their transition baskets. We have to just do a better job of being direct with what we want to do. We can't be caught in between. That's when turnovers happen. We have to be aggressive getting to the basket or making the right passes and right play. We can't play in between.

Q. How do you get Tristan Thompson more involved as a rebounder? And why did he only play 22 minutes last night?
COACH LUE: How do I get him more involved as a rebounder?

Q. What does he have to do to do what he does best?
COACH LUE: I think they're doing a good job. He's one of the best offensive rebounders in the league, so they're doing a good job of making sure they get two guys on him, two guys hitting his body to keep him off the glass. When you play good defense and Tristan is getting offensive rebounds, that demoralizes your defense.

They're doing a good job of trying to keep him off the glass and making a concerted effort to do that. With that being said, Kevin [Love] was able to get five offensive rebounds. We have to continue to keep playing. It was one game. And he'll get more the next game.

Q. You talked all year about how your offense is one that makes the defense pick their poison and they have to give up something, whether it's drives to the basket or open threes. With what Golden State was able to do last night with the easy baskets that you were talking about, the layups and the dunks, how much of that was you guys picking your poison and trying to limit their three-point shooting, and how much was it defensive breakdowns that you feel like can be corrected?
COACH LUE: I thought a lot of it could be corrected. It's a different dynamic when you have Kevin Durant pushing the ball in transition and you have Steph and Klay on the wings. You have to do a better job of getting floor balance. We can't turn the basketball over. We have to take good shots. And a shot goes up, we have to get back and get the floor balanced. So it's just a lot of things that we can correct and we will correct them going into Game 2.

Q. Along those lines, what do you think is most correctable about your defense from Game 1?
COACH LUE: Just transition. They only shot 42 percent from the field. So you take away those easy baskets and take away them having 20 more shots than we did, it's a different ball game.

Q. Do you feel like the atmosphere at Oracle had an impact on the game last night?
COACH LUE: They had a great atmosphere. We knew that coming into the series. We have been there before and we played against this great crowd, and we knew that coming into it. And they're very excited to try to get back and get revenge on what happened last year, so their crowd was definitely into it. But we have been a part of that before, so we understood that coming into it.

Q. How much has James Posey developed as an assistant coach and what specific assignments and duties do you have for him as he sort of matriculates through that job?
COACH LUE: Pose scouts, but his guy is Kevin. He does a good job with Kevin Love, talking to him and showing him different things and things that we need to work on and get better at. But the thing with Pose is every year he's gotten better at opening up. He's a quiet guy, a shy guy, but now he's taken responsibility of opening up and telling guys what he sees and being more vocal.

He's already a great person, and we knew who he was as a player. So just opening up, being more vocal to the guys. And when he speaks, all the guys respect him.

Q. Does it also help that you also have a lot of veteran guys, a lot of former head coaches on your staff? And you sort of made the same kind of transition that he's probably hoping to make one day. How much time do you spend sort of coaching him to be a better coach and to wait for that opportunity?
COACH LUE: Yeah, I talk to him all the time. Pose is a shy guy. He doesn't like to step on guys' toes. And I said: Listen, you played a lot of basketball, you have a lot of experience, so if you see something, you want to say something, you have to speak up and say it. He's done a better job with that.

We have a very good coaching staff, with Larry Drew and Jim Boylan, Mike Longabardi, Damon Jones, Phil Handy, Vitaly Potapenko. We have a lot of guys that played in this league and a lot of guys with a lot of coaching experience. So our staff is really good. We're just trying it groom the young guys, and Pose is coming along very quickly.

Q. Last night when the team tried isolation plays and clear-outs, even when they had a favorable matchup, they seemed to be, to me, not so productive, and that led to turnovers. Is there anything about the Golden State defense that makes that play less effective? Or was it just what happened last night and you if keep trying it, you'll go back to the norm?
COACH LUE: Well, you have to play that way against this team because they switch everything. They switch on pin-downs. So you have to get the favorable matchup and try to take advantage of it early. But I thought they did a good job of just shrinking the floor when it happened. We really didn't have a lot of driving seams, so that forced us into a few turnovers. But we have to get the matchups we like and we want and we have to take advantage of it, just like we did last year.

Q. This is another question that you ask after a rough Game 1 on a scoreboard: Are you considering any lineup changes for Game 2?
COACH LUE: No.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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