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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS vs WARRIORSJune 7, 2018Klay ThompsonCleveland, Ohio: Practice Day Q. You guys have been in this situation a lot. Have you learned anything about the approach to getting that last win? KLAY THOMPSON: Yeah, stop the other team from setting NBA records, which happened to us last year. So we have been in closeout situations many times before, failed and succeeded in a couple of them. We'll just lean on that experience to pull through tomorrow. Q. Klay, you're up 3-0. How do you approach Game 4 and not lose your intensity or become complacent? KLAY THOMPSON: Well, anything can happen if you give a team confidence. Nothing is ever guaranteed in this league. So might as well leave it all out there on the floor, not think in the back of your mind all we have to do is get one of the next four. No. You have to take it one game at a time. Like I said, just play your absolute hardest, exert all the effort you've got, and we should be good. Q. What it's like winning a championship on the road versus being at home? KLAY THOMPSON: Oh, man, I don't want to talk about winning championships right now because we haven't won anything. But based on my past experience, I don't have a preference. It just feels good to get the job done, to be honest, because it's so hard in the first place to win a championship. So you can't be picky. Whenever you win it, just be happy. Q. When it comes to K.D.'s performance, he's such a chill dude off the court, but how does he turn up those competitive dials to be pretty cold blooded on this stage? KLAY THOMPSON: Oh, he's just not afraid of the moment. He never has been. He'll take any shot, and if he fails, it doesn't bother him too much because he knows how good he is and how talented he is. That's why he succeeds so much. That's why you see him hitting these big shots on the biggest stage in basketball. Q. You guys know how good he is. But do you ever catch yourself marveling at some of his performances? KLAY THOMPSON: Well, I think it's the law of familiarity. You kind of take it for granted how good he is, and you get so used to seeing him do it on a nightly basis, you forget that scoring 43 points on 22 shots in The Finals is so incredibly hard and it hasn't been done very often. We appreciate him so much. Like I said, it's just a familiar feeling, so you take it for granted sometimes. Q. Do you feel like you guys are pushing back the limits on a three-pointer when K.D.'s throwing up those 35-footers? It kind of seems like range is moving back. KLAY THOMPSON: Yeah, I think it's just an evolution of the game, really. Shooting is at a premium right now, and I think it will be for the history of basketball, just because if you got shooters, you can stretch the floor, you can give yourself more space to operate. And with our team, we can start our offense from 35 feet out because we've got a few guys that can pull up from that distance. It obviously helps having Steph and K.D. who will take and make any shot in the book. But like I said, when you've got guys like that that can stretch the floor, it just makes it so easy for everyone else to operate. Q. Obviously the team came out on top last nightbut is there any feeling as a competitor that you need to bounce back after an ordinary game for you by your standards? KLAY THOMPSON: Yeah, absolutely. Individually it is a team sport and it feels amazing to win. You win and lose as a team. But you always think in the back of your mind if I do this better individually we could have won by this much. We could have stopped this. So me and Steph, obviously, are thinking that over these next couple days and we'll have a better performance from us if we do that. Q. How does last year's experience in Game 4 help you approach this year's Game 4? KLAY THOMPSON: It's such a familiar feeling. You feel good about -- it's natural to feel great about yourself right now. It's natural to be on a high because we're 48 minutes away from the championship. But that's the feelings you have to fight. You've got to fight complacency. You've got to fight the feeling like you've already won this thing. It's far from over. This is not a team that will roll over and just give you the game. You saw it last year. You saw it in 2016. So we've got to go out there and put it away. It's not up to us letting the Cavs beat themselves; we've got to go out there and beat them. They're not a team that usually beats themselves. They're too competitive and too talented for that. Q. How would you compare and contrast when Kevin gets it going or Steph gets it going, what their mentality is like? What it's like to witness that? KLAY THOMPSON: It's very similar, to be honest. They just want the ball and they want to make the right play. It doesn't mean taking and making crazy shots. It can mean just coming off the pick and hitting the open guy. When they're flowing like that, that's when we're at our best. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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