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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS: PELICANS vs WARRIORS

May 1, 2018

Alvin Gentry

Oakland, California: Game Two

Game 2

Warriors 121, Pelicans 116

Q. How does Draymond get under the skin of opponents and what effect did he have on the game tonight?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: I don't think he got under anyone's skin if that's what you mean. He's a good player. He gets under your skin because he almost has a triple-double. Other than that, you know, our guys know who he is and what he's about, so you just continue to play. You don't let any of that affect your play or what you're trying to do.

Where he's effective, he ends up with whatever the heck he did, almost a triple-double. That's what you worry about. You don't worry about the things that he's saying.

Q. Picking up on what you were talking about with Draymond, him and Rondo got into a bit of a tussle and seems Kerr, when we talked to him, he welcomed as long as he doesn't get a technical.
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: It's basketball, guys. It's the playoffs. It's going to happen when you're playing a team at least four times. There's going to be those little incidents, whatever you want to call it. It's no big deal. It's basketball. Those guys got total respect for each other, and it just part of it. You won't get a story out of that one. You're going to have to have another angle, really (laughing).

Q. On Saturday night, you could almost throw that one away saying, you know, we didn't play very well, they were hot. We lost by 20-something. Tonight you played well and still didn't win. Is that disappointing?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: No, you know, you want me to talk in coach's clichÃ©s? I will. The only thing they did is what they were supposed do. They won their two home games and now we get to go home to play.

You know, obviously we played hard and there was a lot of things that we improved on and there's a lot of things we've got to continue to improve on but they have still got to win two more games. We'll have games at our place and then we'll find a way to get to the foul line. They shot 59 foul shots and we shot 20. So we have to find a way to get to the foul line. We did what we wanted to as far as staking the ball to the basket, we had 39 football points and that's all playing in our favor and there's just a few things that we've got it continue to get better at.

Q. How difficult is it when you feel like you did such a good job against KD for most of the game and then he drops in tough shots in the fourth quarter the way he did?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: That's who he is. That's who he is. That's not anything new. You've just got to continue to try to make him make tough shots and that's exactly what he did.

What you have to do is that you can't have the margin of separation to the point where when he does miss those shots and you go down and you convert, that that's not putting you right at the edge of being -- having the lead again. That's what you've got to do.

Q. You mentioned the free throw disparity and you look at the stats sheet tonight, Holiday and Davis don't attempt a free throw. What has to happen? Do they have to play more aggressively?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: I think we played aggressive. Both of them did. Jrue took the ball to the basket. As I said, we had 54 shots in the paint. So I think that is being aggressive.

Q. Steph played well in his first game back. How would you assess how you handled him and his effect on the game overall?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: The guy is a two-time MVP. He came in and made his first couple of shots. I felt for the most part we did a good job on him trying to chase him off screens and obviously he got seven free throws off us chasing him off screens and him attempting to shoot jumpshots but he's going to score.

You know, get right about where he did -- where he's average is, a couple of points more, but he wasn't going to come back till he was ready to play, so there was no reason to think that he wasn't going to play well.

Q. If you had to break it down into one area going into Friday, what do you think you have to improve upon the most to get your first win in the series?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: Well, we've got to eliminate the timely turnovers. You know, I thought we had a game, it was a one-point game, and we had a couple of bad possessions, a couple of bad turnovers.

So as I said in the first game, this is not a team that you can turn the ball over against without paying a huge price. I thought we paid a huge price tonight in those particular turnovers right at the crucial time because they went down and they scored on them.

Q. I know you touched a little bit earlier, was the game a little bit more physical than normally or is it something y'all are accustomed to?
HEAD COACH ALVIN GENTRY: We played this team. It's not like we haven't played them. We've now played them six times, okay (chuckling) so there's not anything new that comes out of it, and we play in the West. So it's a physical -- it's a physical league. Forget about being in the West but it's a physical league, and obviously, playoff time, things gets a little more physical, as I said and a little more chippy because you're playing against a team, you know, four, five, six times, seven times maybe.

It's just what it is. I saw nothing tonight that would go, oh, wow, this is really going to be interesting when we go back home to play. I mean, just, you know, you guys are going to have to pick another series or another situation to write about the chippiness and who is pissed off at who, because I don't see it out there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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