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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 15, 2018

Chris Paul

Houston, Texas: Practice Day

Q. Mike talked about the team not necessarily having a short enough memory as you progressed, got a little rattled, spirit sagged. Things didn't go quite right. How do you battle against that and avoid that?
CHRIS PAUL: You come out and get ready to play Game 2. Come out aggressive. We've got to defend better. We watched film. Saw the stuff that we talked about last night a few hours ago and just validated it.

Q. What are some of the things that you look at and think that's something we can fix?
CHRIS PAUL: The defensive mistakes, the switches. At the end of the half, I stayed on Steph [Curry] when I should have switched on Nick [Young], and he hit an open three. I mean, that's stuff that we can clean up and fix, and we've got to do it harder and better.

Q. You mentioned last night a lot of teams don't take advantage of every mistake the team makes. Do they reduce the margin of error to where you can almost not make any?
CHRIS PAUL: I think there's a reason why they won a championship last year, you know what I mean? I think if you go to any statistics, the team that usually wins probably has the least amount of mistakes. You know what I mean? So obviously.

Q. Mike found some humor in the criticism of you guys being iso heavy last night. As good as you guys are in isos, is there a fine line of maybe too much?
CHRIS PAUL: Where was the criticism?

Q. He called it noise?
CHRIS PAUL: I haven't seen that on TV. I haven't seen no nothing. So where was it?

Q. On TV and other various places.
CHRIS PAUL: You?

Q. No.
CHRIS PAUL: I don't care either way. At the end of the day, we are who we are. We got here playing the way that we play, and we've just got to be us.

Q. Can there be such a thing as too much? Can you be that iso heavy and keep some of the role players and shooters in rhythm?
CHRIS PAUL: I don't know. Just we are who we are. We got here, 65 wins, so at the end of the day, I think we're going to be who we are. That's my answer to that.

Q. One of the main things Trevor [Ariza] was talking about was lack of communication last night. How did it slip away from you guys and how do you get it back?
CHRIS PAUL: We didn't talk as well as we have been in the past, and I think that's why we're playing against them and not against, you know the team with the worst record in the league. They caused different matchup issues, as do we. They did what they do better for longer than we did, and we've just got to do that better tomorrow.

Q. Draymond [Green] was saying it's a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job that you guys have. It's not just the two and a half hours on the court. He's always texting his guys when he needs to encourage them. Do you do that as well with your team? Is that the kind of thing that you've created? With your teammates when things aren't great or even when they are?
CHRIS PAUL: Yeah, we do our thing over here. We talk, we communicate. We try to figure out ways to win.

Q. When you're in situations, you know, there is a lot to talk about offensively in isolation. But when you're in a defensive position in that situation, what's that like being out on an island with a guy like James Harden in front of you? What are the stresses that that puts on?
CHRIS PAUL: I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. You watch a lot of basketball. You know what I mean? Everybody has tendencies, you know what I mean? So if you watch it enough and study enough, you have, you know where people like the ball.

Q. You kind of file through that scouting report in your mind in those moments?
CHRIS PAUL: Yeah. I mean, it's like clockwork. When you're writing up a story, I don't know if I have to tell you where to put the period at. Seriously, no one has to tell you that. So it's sort of what we do. Like you said, we do this every day, you know? For a long time, since I was about five years old.

Q. The next game's always the next important game. Is it even more so with the next one here at home?
CHRIS PAUL: Yeah, we talk about it. Every game is the most important game, the next one. So tomorrow right now is the most important game for us. I said it a number of times, it's not any given Sunday. It's not March Madness. You know what I mean? So, first one to four wins.

Q. What gets some of the other guys some of their normal looks? PJ [Tucker], some of his normal threes that they weren't getting last night?
CHRIS PAUL: I don't know. As you can see in the game, both of us like to switch things defensively, right? You all watched all the other games. Most teams do low man and leave guys open for threes. That's a little bit different when teams are switching, so you have to figure out different ways. Whoever figures out the way more than the other team is probably going to win.

Q. How vital is that then?
CHRIS PAUL: It's very vital. But as you can see, they scored a lot of points on us in transition. So we're really good in transition. So how do we get in transition? Play better defense.

Q. Is it easier said than done fixing the defensive issues in-game while progressing?
CHRIS PAUL: It's always easier said than done. It's always easier to say what you need to do until you get out there. But that's what sports and competing is about, it's about imposing your will. So I think for us we've got to go out there. We know what to do. You know what I mean? I knew to switch that screen, but I didn't do it. You know what I mean? So we just have to be better.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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