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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 20, 2018

Mike D'Antoni

Oakland, California: Game Three

Warriors - 126, Rockets - 85

Q. Mike, why was the offense so hard for you guys tonight?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, I thought early there were a couple keys. Again, we didn't have the thrust we had the second game. We kind of reverted back to the first game. We'll talk about that. Then we didn't make plays, we didn't make shots, didn't make plays, it looked like the air seeped out of the balloon. They picked it up in the second half. They made shots and we didn't, but it goes back to force. This is a hard team. Even if we had played better, 20 turnovers, and it just didn't look good.

Q. The third quarter they opened up on a 10-0 run, and the game gets out of control. What did you see from your team during that period to where they were really able to take total control of that game?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, I thought the biggest thing was at the end of the first quarter it was 22-22 timeout, 2:32 to go, whatever. They went on a 9-0 run. It was mostly a foul, didn't box out, didn't do this, didn't do that. Now we're down 9, down 11 at halftime, which we felt pretty good about it just because we can correct that stuff. Then we came out I think in the start of the third, if I'm not mistaken they scored five, six, seven straight points, and it wasn't enough force again. We have to correct it, and they did their part. Kudos, but we've got another game on Tuesday, and see if we can do what we did in the second game. We've just got to play with a lot more force.

Q. As you refer to the force, I'm thinking you mean attacking offensively?
MIKE D'ANTONI: But also defensively. We didn't switch up into people, we didn't box off. It's just one thing led to another. Played soft, actually. I mean, you can't do that with these guys. These guys are good. We still might not have won. If you want points, you have to play well. We didn't make shots early, we turned it over. It was not a very good game, and we're going to have to play a lot better on Tuesday.

Q. Steph Curry was 3-for-20 from three the first 10 quarters of the series. What happened after that?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, a couple things, one, he's good, and sooner or later he's going to erupt. You can analyze him all you want, but at the end of the day he's still a pretty good basketball player.

I thought we let him get going a couple times. We didn't switch out, didn't get up into him. Then it's a lot easier to shoot when you're up 20 and up 18 which they were most of the game. It's very comfortable, and we didn't make them uncomfortable at all, all night. I do know for sure it will be better on Tuesday. Our guys know what they've got to do and we've done it, and see if we can do it again.

Q. In a game this big, how do you explain a team playing soft like you said?
MIKE D'ANTONI: Well, you know, again, second game was pretty big too and they came out the same way. It's just ebbs and -- it's just the way it goes sometimes. It flows like that. But I thought we got down early and didn't do the little things to get us in there, and then we'd have found some more energy. They gave us a haymaker and we went down.

Again, we have short memories, have to. It's 2-1, and we've got to get one up here and this next one we've got to go get it.

Q. When you say there are some things that you have to correct, are you basically talking about the Rockets missed a lot of easy layups and things.
MIKE D'ANTONI: That would help. We can't -- those are double whammies. It's like we missed layups first half especially and they go down and score. So in transition, you've got to keep them out of transition, you've got to make layups. We didn't do that. When they did miss, we didn't box out all the time, and then we turned it over 20 times. It's a formula for losing, and for us to correct that, we can't turn it over. Got to make layups for shots, and get back.

So it's correctible, which is a good thing. I could have come in here and we could have lost but two points and we could have played guys 40, 45 minutes and be dead tired. Well, we're not. Let's see what we can do Tuesday.

Q. Warriors usually don't stagger Curry and Durant, tonight they definitely did, made sure one of them was always on the court. How much of a difference was that for you guys?
MIKE D'ANTONI: I mean, first half they were both in the high 20 minutes, so they didn't stagger them a whole lot. They were just out there. But they played well.

We know that they're going to make some back cuts and scoring, and we know they're going to go one-on-one and score some. We didn't take away the things that we could, and that was transition, that was offensive rebounds. That's some of our switches weren't quite on point, and we have to correct that.

But it is correctible, which is good.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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