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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: CLIPPERS vs WARRIORS

April 26, 2019

Steve Kerr

Los Angeles, California: Game Six

Warriors interview

Warriors - 129, Clippers - 110

COACH KERR: Before I take any questions I want to say congrats to the Clippers on an amazing season. I love their team. I just love how they compete, how they fight and play for each other. That's a beautiful basketball team. They made us work for everything. So they've got a bright future.

And Doc did a great job with them all year and their young guys are impressive. That was tough. That was a tough, tough series.

Q. Just wonder, do you have any general impressions of Kevin Durant? (Laughter).
COACH KERR: That was one of the great performances I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen some good ones. I've been around some decent players. So he just carried us these last couple of games of the series.

He's the ultimate weapon because there's no defense for Kevin. No matter what anybody does, he can get a good shot. And he knew we needed him badly. And he just took over the game in the first half and set a great tone.

Q. With the kind of effort that the Clippers showed throughout the series, to what extent do you think that can help you guys moving forward in terms of sharpening the focus?
COACH KERR: They brought out our best. Tonight was, that first half especially, we had to play that way to win the series. So one of the things that happens during the playoffs is you can sharpen your game against an opponent that forces you to do so.

And so that's what I saw is they made us -- we had leads in some games that we lost. And every time we thought, all right, we've got this, we didn't have it.

So getting through it now it's easy to say, yeah, that was good for us. Didn't feel good for us while it was happening. But they brought out the best in us and now we'll move on.

Q. Can you talk about the job you guys did on Lou and Montrezl? Seems like they were successful at your place, but here you were able to contain them here at Staples?
COACH KERR: Obviously they've got guys who can score. They've got guys who can defend. But that pick-and-roll is as tough as it gets in this league. So the job Klay Thompson did out there tonight defensively was amazing. Andre Iguodala as well. And those guys don't get enough credit -- Klay, especially. Andre has been an All-Defensive player.

Klay needs to be on the all defensive team. You think about what he does year after year guarding the toughest guards, switching on to bigs, guarding everybody out there. And Andre is, I've said it before, he's as smart as any player I've ever been around. I thought they did a great job.

And Draymond had a fantastic game. Looney came in also, good job on Harrell. I thought that was key. Gallinari got lose and he was fantastic tonight. But we controlled the other two guys pretty well and I thought that was really important.

Q. How do you approach like this incredibly quick turnaround? I think it's, what, maybe 40 hours until you play again and you play Houston?
COACH KERR: Yeah, we know them well. We kind of know what they're going to do. They don't make you think too much about what they're going to do. They let you know. They're going to come after you and pick-and-roll. We played them three times in the playoffs the last four years.

We know their team well. They're tough. We know they're already in the Bay waiting for us. So it will be a quick turnaround. But this is how it goes. This is the NBA. It's just like the regular season; you get a day off and you play another game.

Q. Does it matter to you, though, that this series is the second round as opposed to the Western Conference Finals, there's not as much miles on either of your teams yet?
COACH KERR: Well, I think you're going to have to play them at some point and they're going to have to play us at some point. So it doesn't really matter when it is. You just take what's there and you see what happens. So we'll be ready to go on Sunday.

Q. You guys seem to turn it up on the road. How do you defend your home court with the same tenacity and vigor and energy there so you don't kind of have a slide --
COACH KERR: I'm disappointed we have home court advantage in this coming series. (Laughter). I'm not sure how we'll handle that. But you're right -- we tend to play well on the road. I think it's a natural human reaction. You feel more threatened. When you feel more threatened, you've got your guard up and you're ready.

So we know that as you go in the playoffs, the competition gets better. And as good as the Clippers are and were in this series, it's going to be tougher in the next one. So we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Q. Obviously Kevin gets all the shine for tonight. But Draymond Green had a triple-double. How was he tonight and particularly in closeout games since you've coached him?
COACH KERR: Well, Draymond is a champion. He's got three rings and Defensive Player of the Year, and he's as competitive as anybody I've been around. He had a bad game last game. He'll tell you. He did not play well in Game 5.

So I had a feeling he'd have a big one for us tonight. And he did. I thought he was great in all areas -- passing the ball, rebounding, defending, playing with pace. He was a huge part of the win.

Q. Obviously a lot of teams are gunning for you but Houston in particular has made no secret that you're the team that they want to play. How do you guys go into that series with that in mind?
COACH KERR: That doesn't matter. I mean, you just -- doesn't matter who you want to play, you've just got to play. So we'll be ready to go on Sunday and we know what Houston's about. We know how good they are. We've got to be ready.

Q. You have a unique advantage in that you have such high-powered scorers, namely Steph, Klay and KD. Is there a conversation before a game like this with someone like KD, do you say, this is a game where we need that extra punch? Is that a conversation that happened that led to this or is that --
COACH KERR: No, it's just understood. It's just understood. He knows what's necessary. And he tried to carry us last game, had 45 points, I think. And he knew the way this series was going; he knew exactly what he needed to do and there was no conversation necessary.

Q. The balance between the three is just in the game.
COACH KERR: Yeah, kind of nice having these guys on our team. They're pretty good.

Q. Wondering if there's any update on Steph? He was limping couple times during the game, clearly twisted --
COACH KERR: No update. He went back in the locker room and came back out. I talked to Rick. Rick said he's good to go. So he played. So I don't have an update for you. We'll see what happens.

Q. Klay is okay? Looked like he tweaked --
COACH KERR: They were both banged up a little bit. So hopefully they'll be good to go Sunday. But I don't have any updates.

Q. And just quickly, the decision to start Shaun, what was behind that?
COACH KERR: To open up the floor a little bit and get the pace in our favor. They did a good job, Clippers did the last couple of games of slowing us down a little bit.

They made their move with JaMychal Green a couple games ago. This was our counter just to match them and to get our pace up. And I thought even though we were down 10 early I loved the pace and I loved the way the game was going and I felt good about it.

So Shaun did a really good job, and I thought our guys just stepped up when they needed to.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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