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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS vs CELTICSMay 15, 2018LeBron JamesKevin LoveBoston, Massachusetts: Game Two Celtics - 107, Cavaliers - 94 Q. How did you feel after the collision with Jayson Tatum in the first half, and do you think it affected your game in the second half at all after the collision? LeBRON JAMES: I felt like I needed to go back to the locker room, which I did, and kind of recalibrate. It was a tough blow. Obviously incidental. His shoulder hit me right square in my jaw. Just wanted to go back to the back and make sure everything was fine. But I don't think it -- it didn't affect my game after that. Q. We've talked to Ty [Lue] and a couple other guys about this. Do you feel like as a team you kind of lost your composure in the fourth quarter? LeBRON JAMES: No, I don't think so. I think that's easy to say. I think we had some good looks. We had an opportunity. It was a two-possession game. We were down six. We had a great trap in the corner on Jaylen Brown, and I felt like we played great defense and a foul was called on Al Horford, he goes and makes two, we don't score, and it kind of sends it back to a 10-point game after that. Not as well as we would like to play in the second half. It was a two-possession game at one point. We had a great defensive sequence that ended up in a foul for them, so that didn't work out for us. Q. What is your reaction to Marcus Smart's impact on tonight's game and this series so far? LeBRON JAMES: I think Marcus always makes plays at the right time. His ability to play multiple positions, but they put the ball in his hands and they trust him to take plays for others. He has a really uncanny ability to get into the lane and either creates for himself or create for others, and he did that tonight with the nine assists and also had some offensive rebounds and also some missed shots. He's always been very productive for their ballclub. Q. I asked Ty, that stretch bridging the end of the first half into the third quarter, how did that turn around in the game? LeBRON JAMES: With turnovers. Turnovers and not defending full shot clock, especially in that third quarter. We've had our third quarter woes this whole season, and tonight was another example of that. Q. LeBron, you use that phrase zero concern the other day after the game, one loss. When you have 42 and a triple-double and you still lose, what's your level of concern now? LeBRON JAMES: We have an opportunity to go back home, protect home court. We're going to use these days to really dive in on what needs to be done to help our ballclub be successful. They did what they had to do, and that was protect home, and now it's our time to try to do that, as well. We have a few days, like I said, and we're going to see what we're made of on Saturday. Q. I know you talked the first question about your injury. Were you checked for a concussion? LeBRON JAMES: I was checked for multiple things, and I passed them all. That's why I was able to come back and finish the half. Q. You mentioned after Game 1 you've been down 0-1 before, you've been down 0-2 before. This is the first time you've been down 0-2 in the East in 10 years. How do you think you will digest that challenge over the next couple days and prepare yourself for what's going to be called for from you? LeBRON JAMES: How will I digest it? I'm going to go home tonight and see my three kids, see my family, recalibrate, see my mom. I think I'll be fine. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. You go out and when you lay everything on the line, at the end of the day, you can live with that. I'll recalibrate as far as how I can help this team continue to be successful, how I can do some things to make us be even more complete, and I probably -- the only way I probably won't get no sleep tonight is if Kev [Love] don't get asked a question asked. I'm going to lose a lot of sleep if someone doesn't ask him a question. I'm leaving. (Laughter). Q. Kevin, you guys at times throughout the Playoffs, it's been staggered where LeBron would be on the court basically at all times so you have that as an offensive weapon. There was some success with the lineup without you guys in the second quarter but not so much in the fourth. What's it going to take to get consistency out of the rest of the Cavs outside of you two scores in these Playoffs? KEVIN LOVE: I mean, I think you can actually take a lot from the Boston Celtics. They had all their starters in double figures, and that comes a lot, I think, with not only [Brad] Stevens putting them in the right position but their level of activity. They move the ball, they continue to cut. You mentioned Marcus Smart earlier. He was a plus 21 in this game. He just seems to do everything out there on the floor. I think we can definitely learn from them, and we have guys that are very capable, too, so we just need them to be themselves, but I think like Bron said, just getting back home and digesting what we need to do over these next few days will be big for those guys, and going back home in general and playing at the Q will be huge. Q. Kevin, how do you guys go about generating the kind of energy plays Boston fed off of in the fourth quarter? How do you guys get those as you go back home? Is it all your crowd, or are there other things you guys can do? KEVIN LOVE: It's a little bit of both. We definitely need to get to those 50/50 balls. LeBron mentioned the play in the corner where they were able to get the ball out of that trap and Horford got to the line and got two free throws and that was a big momentum play for them, especially there in the fourth. It kind of broke into not scoring the next play and breaking into several other momentum plays for them that really kind of sealed it for them. That's just something that I think we can use our crowd for one, but also we just need to be better. We need to get to those 50/50 balls, create extra possessions on the offensive end with offensive rebounds and get that ball moving. Q. LeBron, it was kind of a physical game all night. How do you think you guys responded to the way they played? LeBRON JAMES: I mean, it's the Playoffs, so we expected for it to be physical. I wouldn't expect anything less. I think we matched the physicality today. We gave ourselves a pretty good chance with 36 minutes, and that 12 minutes in the third quarter, that killed us. But as far as the physicality of the game, I think we was what we needed to be as far as that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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