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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 19, 2018

Steve Kerr

Oakland, California: Practice Day

Q. How much do you try and get ahead of adjustments rather than just kind of react to them? Do you try and get ahead of adjustments at all?
STEVE KERR: A little bit, a little bit, but I would say in general the team that wins the game is going to make fewer adjustments than the team that lost the last one. But you do try to anticipate what each team is going to do, kind of go through some possible scenarios. When you have a big coaching staff like both teams do, you sit around a table and hash everything out and try to come up with the best plan.

Q. You guys have been significantly better at home in the Playoffs than on the road. Is there anything to that beyond the obvious?
STEVE KERR: No. It's the history of the NBA. Everybody is better at home than on the road.

Q. How tough is to know how good David West has been for you guys this year but that this series is a tougher matchup in terms of finding time for him?
STEVE KERR: This is the modern NBA. It's one of the -- you have to account for (indiscernible) game, but obviously the Playoffs there's more of a spotlight, and certain teams do certain things well, but Houston epitomizes the modern NBA: three-point shooting all over the floor, pick-and-roll. So a guy like David, we have to pick his spots and try to help him be comfortable, I think.

Q. On a guy like West having to get out onto three-point shooters.
STEVE KERR: We had to do the same thing against New Orleans. It's not easy for a big guy to get out to a three-point shooter because he hasn't really done it his whole life. For guards, you understands all the rotations more easily and kind of -- you do it all the time. But for a big guy, it's a little tougher, transition defense, finding the man, staying home with a shooter, all those things. So there's some details in there that we've gone over and had to account for.

Q. How do you go about getting Klay the kind of looks that he had in Game 1 as opposed to Game 2?
STEVE KERR: We've got to play with more force and more pace. They had us on our heels the whole Game 2. We've got to flip that. We've got to put them on their heels. If we get stops, then Klay is going to get more open shots. That's in general -- when we're at our best is when we're getting stops and running out in transition and getting Klay openings in transition from the three-point line. It's amazing, though, how much the game opens up for everybody when you play really hard and really solidly. I think you saw that in Game 2 for their team.

Q. What do you think is the best way to get Steph [Curry] more easy looks from three-point range?
STEVE KERR: Play defense, again. If we defend, get stops, then we get out in transition. Those are the easiest threes that anybody gets, transition threes. We get a couple offensive rebounds, kick them out, that opens up shooters, as well.

There's no, like, magic play that we're going to come up with. We're not changing a whole lot in terms of what we do. We might add something here or there, but just got to play better.

Q. You just mentioned playing with force. Mike D'Antoni was using that same phrase a lot before Game 2. What does that look like on the court?
STEVE KERR: It means being locked in defensively, making the right rotations, keeping guys from their tendencies, whether it's a strong hand or -- you saw a play in the second quarter, I think, where [Trevor] Ariza caught the ball and just dribbled right through the lane, the Red Sea parted, and that's not force. The opposite of that play is where everybody rotates exactly to their man, the shot clock winds down. Maybe they even get a shot-clock violation like they did Game 1. That's playing with force.

Q. Did you show them that play multiple times?
STEVE KERR: Just once is all it took.

Q. Draymond [Green] sort of sets the tone when he's flying and going for loose balls and doing his thing in terms of coming out and kind of setting --
STEVE KERR: Draymond always sets a tone for us, but I thought what happened in Game 2 was we had so many breakdowns that we had to help too much. So we've got to do a better job guarding the ball and staying in front like we did in Game 1. We did a better job of it, and that eliminates a lot of those corner threes and easy drive and kicks. That was the biggest difference to me Game 1 and Game 2, too many breakdowns on the ball, which led to other guys getting more involved.

Q. Phil Jackson's teams were always exceptional in the third quarter, you guys are exceptional in the third quarter. It doesn't seem like there would be a magic formula for that. How do you build a great third quarter team?
STEVE KERR: I think the key honestly is having great talent. I don't mean that to be flip. I mean, I'm just saying when you have really talented guys, a lot of times they get a feel for the game the first two quarters. Maybe they get a feel for what the other team is doing, and then they lock in and locate something. We always -- like every team, we try to make a couple adjustments at halftime and figure out where teams are attacking us, but the reason we're a great third quarter team is because we've got a bunch of guys who are really good players who are smart.

Q. What kind of challenge is it to prepare for someone like Eric Gordon who's a real scorer off the bench when you started your rotation? Is that tricky to prepare for?
STEVE KERR: No. I mean, this is what we do. There's a lot of guys around the league who shoot threes and put it on the floor, make a play. It's the modern NBA. I keep saying that phrase, but it's the truth. Gordon was great the other night, so we've got to do a better job against him.

Q. Your team's offense was a little more iso oriented in Game 2; is that something you'd like to change for Game 3?
STEVE KERR: Our offense?

Q. Yeah.
STEVE KERR: Yeah, and again, when you're taking the ball out of the net, you're going to end up with more isos, so we've got to get downhill a little bit more. We've got to get more space, and I'm very confident we'll do that.

Q. In addition to what you were talking about playing with force, when it comes to Klay [Thompson], Mike was talking about how kind of in the pick your poison department that they're going to have to live with Kevin getting his shots because he's obviously Kevin, but the emphasis was not to allow Klay to get open shots. What did you notice how they did that in Game 1?
STEVE KERR: Yeah, they played way better. They scored more, which meant they got their defense set up more, and they were angry because they lost Game 1, and we were really comfortable because we won Game 1, and they kicked our ass. Simple enough.

Q. They are not especially long, Houston, but they're really good at getting people off the line and contesting, and the defense is really good. What is it that they do well when they're playing well defensively?
STEVE KERR: Well, they do a ton of switching, like we do, and they've got a lot of guys who they may not be the Greek Freak [Giannis Antetokounmpo] or KD, but they're good-sized guys with Ariza, Tucker, Gordon, these guys are good, solid defenders, and they've eliminated a lot of holes in their defense from the past few years by adding more defenders, PJ and [Luc] Mbah a Moute. So they've made it tougher in the half court for sure, and they've done a really good job with their defense, and the stats show it. I think they went from the middle of the pack to -- I think they're top ten, so it's a good defense. I don't know how many ways I can say it, but you get to this level of competition, final four teams in the league, best four teams, you've got to be locked in, you've got to compete, you've got to play every possession. We did a much better job of that in Game 1 than we did in Game 2, and Mike would probably tell you the same thing in reverse. Pretty good chance both teams are going to come out fighting tomorrow, and we'll see a great game, and we're pretty confident that we're going to play a lot better.

Q. Was Game 2 the worst playoff performance of the Warriors this year?
STEVE KERR: No, I thought we did some good things. We played very poorly in New Orleans in Game 3, very poorly against San Antonio Game 4. I thought those two games were our really poor ones. I thought we did some good things in Game 2 but not enough.

Q. You spoke yesterday about the balance, walking the line between chaos and discipline. Does that change for you at home?
STEVE KERR: There seems to be a little more chaos at home in a good way. We get more speed, more pace, our crowd gets into it. I would guess more of our big huge runs this year came at home than did on the road. I'm guessing on that front. Playing at home helps everybody.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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