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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS vs ROCKETS

May 22, 2018

Steve Kerr

Oakland, California: Game Four

Rockets - 95, Warriors - 92

STEVE KERR: ?

Q. How much do you feel like exhaustion or just lack of depth today, guys having to play a lot of minutes and a lot of physicality throughout that game played a role in the fourth quarter?
STEVE KERR: Yeah, it definitely played a role. I thought we made that great push in the third, but we weren't really able to make many subs. We were going well, so we didn't want to disrupt our rhythm. But our normal sub patterns obviously was skewed anyway with Andre's absence. But I felt like in the fourth quarter we just ran out of gas. Scored 12 points. Tried to buy a little bit of rest for our guys, but, yeah, they just outplayed us in the fourth and they earned it.

Q. What was kind of your vantage point on that final scramble play when K.D.'s pushing it up court? And did you think of taking a timeout when Klay was trapped?
STEVE KERR: Well, I wanted the timeout. Draymond was trying to call one around four seconds, once he got trapped, and at that point the officials weren't looking, and they're not going to look down at our bench. So I saw Draymond trying to call it, and I was hoping they'd give it to us, but we didn't get it.

But I'm always a proponent of pushing the ball off of a miss rather than taking a timeout, letting the defense get set up. So I thought we'd get a better shot in transition. That's why I let them play.

Q. Coach, you rotated through that fifth spot quite a few times in the fourth quarter going from [Jordan] Bell to [Kevon] Looney, back to Bell, then Looney, and finally [Shaun] Livingston for the last 40 seconds. What was your thought process when those guys were rotating out?
STEVE KERR: Well, we're trying to get stops, obviously. Biggest thing is get a defensive stop, and then we can run. So Looney and Jordan Bell, our most mobile bigs, along with Draymond, so we're going back and forth between the two of them. So we could continue to get stops, but we just couldn't score at the other end.

Q. Draymond and Kevin both played minutes highs for the season and the playoffs tonight. The 12 points and the fatigue in the fourth quarter, what exactly did you see that made you realize that you guys were out of gas?
STEVE KERR: Just fatigue. Just you just said it. You know. We scored 12 points. So it's not like we were getting great shots either: This game was sort of trench warfare. It was just everybody grinding it out, lot of isolation. I guess this is the modern NBA.

But the only way you can do this and win is you have to have great one-on-one players, you have to have great defenders, two-way guys, and we do and they do. So it just becomes a one-on-one battle with all the switching. They did a great job of it, and we give them credit.

Q. You've referred to Iguodala as your babysitter. Were there some times tonight when you could have used his stabilizing influence on the court?
STEVE KERR: Oh, of course, of course. But he didn't play, so it didn't matter. I just felt like early in the game we had a chance to really make some hay, and I think it was 12-0. We started turning it over and fouling, and it was disappointing because I felt like we could have really stretched the lead. But we sent them to the line over and over again in that first half, the second quarter especially. A lot of turnovers, 10 turnovers in the first half. I thought that allowed them to hang around. Then they got their confidence, made a lot of free throws, got the lead at halftime, and then it was a slog from there.

Q. Regarding the fatigue thing, how much do you think that also applied to Steph's disparity with his shooting in the third and the fourth?
STEVE KERR: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's tough out there. I mean, they shot 39 percet; we shot 39 percent. It's not like in a game like that anybody was out there lighting it up. Chris Paul hit some big ones, obviously, in the fourth quarter. But we did some good things defensively. We've just got to do better offensively.

Q. You did play Steph, Kevin, Klay and Draymond the entire third quarter, and you said they were going well. Did you know when you were doing what am I going to do in the fourth quarter here when you're playing all those guys?
STEVE KERR: Yeah, yeah, we knew we were going to just try to buy two minutes each for Kevin and Steph and Klay. We actually tried to make a sub with about two minutes left. We sent Shaun and Nick [Young] up there, but there was no stoppage, and I didn't want to use a timeout. I had already used my extra timeout. So we left the fourth play out, and we were in great shape. Or the third I should say. We let the third play out, and we were in great shape with a 10-point lead, but couldn't finish it.

Q. Team starts off like this, 12-0, 10-0. Is there any danger that they get a little too confident or relaxed at all? All of a sudden, it looks like oh, the Warriors are going to run away and they don't?
STEVE KERR: Well, that's why I called a timeout when it was 12-0. We committed a careless turnover, and I called a timeout to make sure we were locked in and focused. But they-- Houston did a good job of kind of hanging in there in the first quarter and they dominated that second quarter which changed the game.

Q. How killer was the final six minutes of the second quarter, and Steph gets the third foul and they closed really hard?
STEVE KERR: That was a big stretch in the game, the foul trouble for Steph, and the turnovers, seemed like we had three turnovers in a row late second. That really gave them a boost and changed the game.

Q. Obviously Klay returned to the game, how's he doing? How is his knee?
STEVE KERR: I think he's okay. I haven't talked to him since the game ended. But he came back out and battled, and he was fighting out there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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