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NBA FINALS: CLEVELAND VS GOLDEN STATE

June 12, 2017

Tyronn Lue

Oakland, California: Postgame

Warriors - 129, Cavaliers - 120

Q. It was a three-point game early on in the fourth quarter, and they were able to open it up. Where do you think the Warriors ran away with it, and also can you just sum up what this season meant to you?
COACH LUE: I think we had a couple turnovers. We didn't have a lot in the second half. Couple turnovers, couple bad shots, and that led to them getting out on the break and getting out in transition.

As far as this season, I'm proud of our guys for being a resilient group and staying the course, even when it didn't look great. During the regular season when we hit a drought, we lost some games, I thought when we got healthy, we got our mind right, we stayed the course, and once we got to the Playoffs, we really performed.

Tonight you got to give them credit. They beat us, and they're a good team. And that's about it.

Q. It's a 4-1 series, but how do you view the gap between the Cavs and the Warriors?
COACH LUE: I think that the first two games we talked about last year, you can go over all the shootarounds the walkthroughs you want to go through, but until you actually get on the floor and play against this team, it's tough.

They beat us tonight. I don't see a big gap. I thought we played well, got better each game, but against good teams you can't give away games like Game 3 at home and then expect to come here and win in a hostile environment.

So when you have them beat, you have to beat them. You can't go back and forth or teeter on the fence, you have to beat them. Letting Game 3 get away from us and then coming back to this gym, we knew it was going to be tough, but I thought our mindset was right. I thought we gave the right amount of fight, the right amount of physicality, and they beat us tonight.

Q. What happened in the second quarter? It seemed they kind of blitzed you?
COACH LUE: Turnovers. Turnovers. Bad shot selection. Something we talked about all series. You can't turn the basketball over, you can't take bad shots because you don't have floor balance. And they're so fast, they get out in transition. It's tough to get back and get matched, especially with their speed.

But overall I thought that after the first two games our team really did a good job of locking in defensively, trying to take away what we wanted to take away, and they played a different game. Wasn't a lot of splits, wasn't a lot of movement. It was 1-3 pick and roll with Curry and Durant or pick on our weakest defender and try to attack that.

So for that we took them out of a split game and things they did well, and they went to a different game, and that's what happens when you add Kevin Durant.

Q. You mentioned Game 3 getting away from you. When you leave here, is there a moment, a game, a situation like what do you leave here, going, man, if only we got that?
COACH LUE: I really don't do a lot of that. The game's over, nothing you can do. You can't get it back. But it happens throughout the course of the game. No one's going to play a perfect game, and unfortunately having the ball up six with two minutes 13 seconds and you lose that game, it's tough.

But you got to give them credit for sticking with it and winning that game. So it's over. Nothing you can look back on, and now we just got to prepare and get ready again.

Q. Can you even sum up the difference that team has with Kevin Durant and what he does to make an impact not only as a brilliant scorer but just on the defensive end as well?
COACH LUE: Well, the difference is you have someone who is seven foot tall defensively, now you can put him on Kevin Love and still play him in the post up when they switch. But offensively we guarded him well the last three games, and you see what they started to do. They started to go with the 1-3 pick and roll with Steph Curry and Durant, which might be one of the most unstoppable pick and rolls in our league. And they waited until late to do it. But that's a tough play to stop. And they went posting Kevin Durant in the mid post, we guarded him pretty good, he still shot over the top of us, and add a guy like that who is a great scorer, probably one of the best scorer our league has seen, that's the difference that he makes. When they get -- when you hold Klay to 11 points and now you need another guy to step up and score the basketball, Kevin Durant is a great option to have.

Q. Did you have any sort of moment with the team after the game in the locker room, or will you do that on the plane?
COACH LUE: We had a moment. I broke down so I couldn't really finish my speech. A lot of guys cried because they wanted it bad. And that's all you can ask. If you give all your effort and all the fight and all the heart you got, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win, and that's what's tough about sports.

I credit our guys. I thought they gave everything they had, and we fought, we competed, and we never gave in, but they beat us.

Q. What was the part that made you emotional?
COACH LUE: Just losing. It's tough. My first time being in this position as a head coach and you get the guys here and you play The Finals and you're starting to play better and play well, and then you look up and the season's over. And it just is tough for me because I know all the fight these guys have and how much they wanted to win. And when you come up short like this, it's just tough.

Q. The first two games, very hard to adjust to the Warriors speed, and your role players were having some struggles, but they played really well these last three games, specifically JR Smith and Tristan Thompson. Kyrie and LeBron get a lot of the press. Could you just talk about those two and the way they played tonight?
COACH LUE: JR and Tristan since Game 3 has been great. Just it's funny because I played this game before and I've seen situations where people like to make adjustments and blame it on one guy. But I'm not like that. JR and Tristan they got us here, those are my guys. I wasn't going to sit them on the bench and start someone else. If it didn't go well, we could always adjust. But those guys have been in the trenches and we fought all three years since I've been here. And they came out and they performed.

That's what they do. You can have a couple bad games, they're human, not going to have great games every single night, and I'm just happy for those two guys to be able to bounce back these last three games and play well.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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