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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 14, 2018

Mike D'Antoni

Houston, Texas: Game One

Warriors - 119, Rockets - 106

Q. What was the big difference from the way you guys started to when the tide turned?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, they're really good. You're not going to come in and just knock them out. I mean, there's too many times we had just mental lapses. We either didn't switch properly or we didn't switch hard enough. We turned the ball over a little bit too much. Every time we missed a layup, which we missed a lot of layups, they ran out.

They're really devastating. We've got to make layups, don't turn it over and do a little bit better job of mentally just staying up on people.

Q. You mentioned the mental lapses, especially in the second half. Did you just notice too many turnovers? Times when you were able to maybe make a run and get back in it and all of a sudden it slips away and they're up by ten again?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Without a doubt. That's what they're good at. They're obviously champions for a reason. If we want to beat them, we have to be mentally sharper. KD's, he's tough. I mean, obviously, he was on tonight. Hey, you can live with that. But you can't live with that and then make mental mistakes, and that's what we do. The combination of the two was devastating.

We'll get that better. We'll make some adjustments on little things that we can do better. To knock these guys out, we've got to play a lot better offensively also.

Q. I think yesterday James Harden said that getting home-court advantage in this series was a focus for about a year. Are you concerned at all about there being any mental ramifications to losing a year-long process?
MIKE D'ANTONI: That, no. Now, obviously, we lost. Now the next most important game is Wednesday. See if we have a short memory. We can't think about this game other than make adjustments. But we've got to come out and win the game on Wednesday, and we'll see what happens. We can win here, we can win there. It's nice to have home court. We don't have it, we've got to go get it.

We lost against Utah and went back and got it. So it's not like we haven't done it. It would be nice if it was a storybook ending: Hey, you win every home game and you go to the next round. But it usually doesn't happen that way.

Q. Your scheme of consistently switching on defense, can that really come back to bite you with a player like KD?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah. If you don't switch, it's going to bite you with Curry and everybody else. So they've got a lot of biting. They switched on us, and obviously they did a little bit better job or whatever. James torched it. But, no, it's not going to bite us. That's the only way you can guard these guys. We've got to do a better job of it.

Then we have just too many times, just little things here and there. We weren't quite tough enough. I think we ran out of gas a little bit in different spots, and they didn't. They played well.

Q. What did you think about Clint Capela's first half offensively?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Clint can play. First half, second half, I mean, he's probably maybe our best perimeter defender. Inside. He guarded really well. I thought Clint had an excellent game.

Q. With them switching as much as they do, were you able to get, can you get enough open threes to sort of keep pace for their scoring with the other guys? Not Chris Paul and James Harden, but...
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, you know, we had 37 [three-point attempts]. We'll have to see what kind of shot quality that was. There were a few we had to hoist up at the end of the clock. We can go a little faster. We can do a few things to speed ourselves up a little bit. We got down in the shot clock too many times. We've got to avoid that. But, yeah, we can, yes. To answer your question, yes, we can.

Q. Do you like the defense that you did get on KD? I know some of those shots he made, but did you like how they approached him?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Oh, yeah. He is 7 feet and falling away. He's one of the best scorers ever, right? So I thought he was extremely good. But we can withstand that. We can't withstand turning the ball over, missing layups, them getting out. Klay Thompson got up 15 threes. We can't give him 15 threes. We're switching everything and staying off for that reason, so we have to clean up some stuff and see if we can do it on Wednesday.

Q. When Trevor Ariza picked up the fourth personal foul in the third quarter, did you consider taking him out of the game at that point?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, I considered it. But I don't even think he fouled out, so it doesn't really matter. You've got to play. I trust Trevor. Picked up his fifth foul quickly. I thought Gerald [Green] played really well and came in. So, about the same. But Gerald I thought played really good, great energy. We've just got to, like I said, we've got to play better.

But I don't think that influenced the game. I would have left him in if I thought it would have influenced him, even if he picked up his sixth. We've got guys. I'm going to play Eric [Gordon] and Chris and James down the stretch anyway, with P.J. [Tucker].

Q. You mentioned Klay Thompson getting up those 15 threes. A lot of them are wide open.
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, that's the problem.

Q. How did he get those?
MIKE D'ANTONI: The same way Nick Young got two. We didn't come back and pick up. A little bit that. A little bit we just rotated the wrong guy. Little things like that that we can clean up.

Q. 21 of Kevin's 27 attempts were from two. When he gets in the mid range and the post like he did, just how difficult a defensive assignment is it for you to kind of decide what to do? Because he was beating small guys, big guys and everything.
MIKE D'ANTONI: The difficulty for anybody. I mean, he's that good. But it's like Chris Paul and that mid-range, they're going to take those. We can't allow them to take the threes, the wide-open threes that they had. We had 16 turnovers to their nine. I don't know how many layups we missed and they ran out and got a lot of open shots. So there's just a bunch of stuff we can clean up. We will. Wednesday we'll attack them, and we'll go after it. KD's going to be KD, and he'll be really good.

I thought P.J. did all he could do. Trevor did all he could do. I thought Clint guarded pretty well. So he's that good. But they're probably not worried that much about Harden. He's going to get his points, and it's the other little stuff that you can't withstand everything. You've got to do something, take something away. I don't think we're taking KD's mid-range, fall-back, 7-footer shooting shots. Could double, but then that's great. They've got some pretty good players out there.

Q. Is it discouraging to you to see James score 41 points and you still lose by double digits?
MIKE D'ANTONI: No, I'm going to just go talk to him. He needs about 55 next time, and that would take care of it. I'll just have to tell him that.

Q. Can you tell us any insight on the health of James? One time once he came back in after getting hit in the abdominal area, he seemed like he didn't have very much lift on the finish. Can you talk about his medical condition and any residual affects of that punch in the abdomen?
MIKE D'ANTONI: I don't think so. I think he's fine. You have to ask him. I didn't notice anything bad. I mean, obviously, he got a little tired, but we're riding him pretty good. So he ends up with 41 and 7. That's pretty good. So I think he'll be all right.

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