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NBA FINALS: CLEVELAND VS GOLDEN STATE

June 12, 2017

Tyronn Lue

Oakland, California: Pregame

Q. Durant made a reference yesterday that people, they could have made a sandwich in the time they got to your shooters the other night, it took so long. Do you expect some changes in their on-ball defense and getting out to shooters?
COACH LUE: I hope not.

(Laughter.)

No, we just did a good job of playing with pace, I thought. We did a good job of moving bodies and moving the basketball. They're a great defensive team, so you have to do different things. I just thought we did a really good job offensively taking care of the basketball, moving bodies and moving the ball.

Q. How do you qualify the challenge of this game? It's a must-win on the road. You had this same situation last year, but there was no Draymond Green, no Kevin Durant on that team.
COACH LUE: We just have to play well. I think try to duplicate what we did last game of being physical, getting back in transition, holding this team to only 14 points in transition, which is going to be tough.

But I thought offensively we were really good. We didn't turn the basketball over. We got back in transition. So that's a big part of the game.

Q. What can one win do for a group's confidence?
COACH LUE: Which one? Tonight or last game?

Q. The last one.
COACH LUE: I just thought we played well. Game 3 got away from us late in the game, and we feel like we had a chance to win that game. So I thought that throughout this series we have gotten better each game, and now we just got to continue to keep doing it.

Q. Steve Kerr said that he wants his team to approach tonight with appropriate fear, quoting Gregg Popovich. How do you want your guys to approach this game?
COACH LUE: Appropriate fear.

Q. Coach Kerr also said he was looking at film of I believe the '15 NBA Finals and how you guys, back then, it was like playing half court, like the game was played near the basket. And you guys have moved away from that. We asked LeBron a couple days ago. He was like, That's not the team we are now. But do you feel like you still can, on a drop of a dime, go back to that, play different styles? Or you guys are fit one way right now?
COACH LUE: Is 2015, that's with Timo [Timofey Mozgov], when Kyrie and Kevin were hurt? Oh, yeah. Well, that was just a different team. We started two bigs with Tristan and Timo. Didn't have a lot of space on the floor. So with Kyrie and Kevin being out, two of our main scorers besides LeBron, we had to slow the game down. We had to post LeBron a lot. Had to use our bigs and slow the game down because they were dynamic offensively. So that's just the style we had to play to even be competitive. But now we're a different team and we play a different way.

Q. Why do you think it took so long for the physicality to surface in this series?
COACH LUE: I'm not sure. We talked about it coming into the series that we wanted to be physical. We wanted to be on bodies. I'm not quite sure. I really don't know.

Q. Do you think you guys are playing with the attitude of you have nothing to lose?
COACH LUE: We do have something to lose, a championship. I never understood that thing anyway, with talking about we have nothing to lose. We do. We're competing to win a championship, and we have everything to lose.

Q. Looking at the numbers, a lot of your players played much better at home than on the road. Of course you're on the road right now. How do you get JR and those other guys to play at their Cleveland level here?
COACH LUE: Just stay aggressive. Do what you do. Be who you are. That's how I try to coach. JR knows he's an assassin. When you're open, you have to shoot the basketball. We don't need you making plays. Shoot the basketball.

When he got home for Game 3 and Game 4, he really had that mindset. That's what kind of opened up the game for us offensively.

Q. Along those lines, what do you think the biggest impact is of a home crowd? Is it just noise? Is it when your team's struggling, they lift you up? Is it effect on the refs? In what ways does a home court make a difference?
COACH LUE: I think in all those ways. I think when you're not playing well, you're not playing great, one big play can turn the crowd around and can turn the game around. And when you're at home, those things mean a lot.

So just the noise factor, trying to get your team's attention, just playing aggressive at times. When you're playing aggressive at home, you tend to get away with more things. So the home crowd is big and it's huge. We understand that.

Q. Is there anything particular about this arena? Is it just the noise, or is there something distinctive about this place that makes it hard?
COACH LUE: They play great at home also. With their crowd and their fans, they have great fans, just like we have in Cleveland. So when they're making those threes and getting out in transition, the crowd really explodes.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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