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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 19, 2018

Mike D'Antoni

Oakland, California: Practice Day

Q. What other things did you feel like you did better defensively and what needs to be done better defensively in this matchup?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, I'll tell you, any series you should naturally get better. You learn their sets and you learn their tendencies and you learn who to rotate to, who to not rotate to. It gets engrained, so as the series goes on, both teams play much better defensively, not making mistakes that you might make in Game 1. So just continue that normal progress, but most of it comes down to communication and not hesitating and in big moments making or reacting to a situation that you didn't react to in the right way.

Q. Offensive teams this good, two of the best ever, how challenging is defense?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, it can wear you out just because you make a mistake on a normal team and more than half the time you're okay. You make mistakes on them, and hopefully you make a mistake on us, you're going to pay for it. So you have to be sharp and you have to be dialed in, and you can't have a letup.

Q. How valuable is it to have a guy like Trevor Ariza?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, he's one of the most -- the five guys that we have that are very valuable. We have to have guys that can guard and make threes and be locked in and make threes in big moments. He definitely fills that role.

Q. He's carved that niche out over more than 10 years. Is that good timing, or does that style translate at all?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, he's done well all the time. He's a basketball player, so he'll fit any style.

Q. How beneficial is it to have all this time off between games so that you can get some work in and that kind of stuff? Or is it beneficial?
MIKE D'ANTONI: No, it's beneficial, more than just to recharge the batteries now. We'll start every other day, and it's going to take some perseverance, and you've got to fight the fatigue and the mental fatigue. This is where if you want to get to the final round, you're going to have to battle a lot of elements.

Q. You touched on that the other day, that it affects your judgment in terms of minutes and things like that as the game goes on, with the every other day type thing?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, it will. We might have to expand the rotation just a little bit because we can't -- you've got to have -- see the big picture, also, but game to game, it'll just be an adjustment. We'll see.

Q. You're referring to center?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Don't know. Don't know that. I don't know. You might play. Are you ready?

Q. Boy, you're in trouble.
MIKE D'ANTONI: I don't know. I haven't made that -- there's a lot of different ways that we can do it. Not a lot, but there's some different ways we can do it. I'll look at every way and try to make the right decision.

Q. How much if at all do you try to anticipate their adjustments?
MIKE D'ANTONI: No, there's no way you can anticipate. And again, they're not going to be radically different than what they do. They do what they do, and we do what we do. They might play different guys, they might have different matchups, they might play guys longer, shorter, might dust off a guy we haven't seen. You can't anticipate that. Each team will make those type of adjustments. But to radically throw something in there right now -- it's almost like a lawyer asking the question you don't know the answer to. It's not always good.

Q. You've been talking up PJ Tucker's defense pretty much all season long. How important was his job, what he did in the third quarter, especially on defense?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, yeah, he's a player. I've talked a long time, if he doesn't make any shots, he's valuable. Really valuable. Making shots the way he is, that just increases his value. But he's integral in what we do, and being able to cover up mistakes defensively for other people, and then the way he guards, he's had a terrific year I thought.

Q. When you see Eric [Gordon] get going like he did, it's not just the three-point shooting, it's the strength that he has to finish at the rim. How kind of unique is that ability and his ability to get into guys with his body like that?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, that's what he does, and that's what makes him valuable. He can get to the rim, finish, and shoots threes. Defensively, you don't move him. He's got a big chest, and he puts it on people there, if it's in the post, if it's a mismatch, a perceived mismatch. He takes pride that nobody is backing him down, and we have guards that are able to do that. James [Harden] is the same way. And that gives us the luxury to be able to switch, almost gives anybody the ability to grab their bigs and guard perimeters. It's just the roster is filled with how we want to play, with the right type of guys.

Q. In loud road environments, teams often struggle with their switches. You guys have handled it really well in these Playoffs.
MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, it should almost be second nature now. You're talking just to make sure, but talking is also making sure guys are awake and ready to go, but part of it is reacting more than talking. But we'll talk when we can. If we can't hear, we should still be able to do it.

Q. Talk about what you guys have been able to do to slow down [Stephen] Curry from three-point. Is it just a matter of time before he could explode?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, yeah, you don't shut down anybody. We try to do our best, and we try to make sure nothing is easy, but I don't have -- he's good. He always will be good. It's not anything that we're doing.

Q. He's gotten about a third of the number of wide-open threes that he got against you guys in the regular season. There must be something that you're doing --
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, we're switching. We didn't switch that much. We did switch some. Now we're switching. So we'd better take away the easy stuff, and that's what we didn't do in Game 1, and Klay Thompson had 15 open looks. In Game 2, we tried to take most of those away. You're always going to make a mistake. You're always going to slip up, if it's slipping up a lot or you just slip every every once in a while. To win against these guys, you can make very few mistakes, so we're trying to do that, but that's a big emphasis, that we're trying to take away their threes, and then you do it by switching.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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