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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS: ROCKETS vs WARRIORS

April 28, 2019

Mike D'Antoni

Oakland, California: Game One

Warriors - 104, Rockets - 100

Q. You guys were outrebounded and you gave up a lot of points in the paint. Anything you can take into Game 2 to prevent that?
COACH D'ANTONI: Yeah, I mean, we gotta do a little bit better job. We had our chances to win. You're just not just going to come in and blow these guys away. So things have to go right. A couple of lapses boxing out. But overall I thought we played well enough to win and just didn't get it done.

Q. From reading your lips correctly as you walked off the court --
COACH D'ANTONI: You didn't want to do that. You didn't want to do that.

Q. -- you looked angry. Can you give us your perspective the last 20 seconds of this game?
COACH D'ANTONI: The last 20 seconds? I've already lost my mind before that. I don't have a clue what happened the last 20 seconds.

I don't know. I don't know. I thought we played as hard as we could play. And things just didn't go our way. And we did a good job the last 20 seconds, just coming up with the steal, having a chance at a tie on a 3-pointer that James could have got hit, could have not. Who knows? I mean, but I know, but, anyway, whatever.

But we're right there. We had our chances to win. We missed a couple of foul shots. We had a couple of technicals that cost us at the end because we were only down three or whatever. We have to -- I have to do a better job and we'll do better. But we had our chance. And Tuesday hopefully we'll have another chance.

Q. Clearly you felt that James, in particular, and Chris on at least one occasion, were getting fouled when they're closing out on 3. What was the response you were getting when you were discussing that with the refs?
COACH D'ANTONI: I'm going to try to be a nice guy because I really don't want to give the charity to them; I'd rather have my charity have the money. So I mean the response was they came in halftime and said they missed them. That's what they told me. They missed four of them. That's 12 foul shots. So be it. They're trying to do the best they can do. And obviously it was what it was.

Q. The Ts were costly --
COACH D'ANTONI: Yeah, they're real costly.

Q. Do you think the refs were being a little too sensitive or do you --
COACH D'ANTONI: Yeah, we just need to suck it up and don't worry about how they officiate and sit there and take it, yeah. I'm getting a little old for that, but that's just how it goes. I try not to curse, I try not to completely be a jerk. Obviously didn't work. So I don't know. I don't know. It's beyond me.

Q. What can you do better next game to stop Kevin Durant? He wasn't effective the first half but he really got going the second half.
COACH D'ANTONI: You need to email me and tell me because I don't think anybody ever knows that and he's just shooting it over (indiscernible). He's one of the greatest player ever, and I thought we did a great job, until PJ got in a little bit foul trouble and things happened.

And then Kevin happens. I mean the guy's good. We held him to 104 points. That's good enough with two technicals and a lot of different things. So that side of it, we could have done better in the first half. We had some communication problems and we'll learn as we go forward and tighten up our defense. But offensively we just gotta do a little bit better job.

Q. Why did you go to Nene there late?
COACH D'ANTONI: He was playing great. He was guarding great. Rebounding could have been an issue. And now looking back I probably wouldn't have made that decision knowing what happened. But I had confidence that even if we switch out he could get it done. And Steph makes a great shot. Give them credit.

Q. What did they do against Capela? It seemed like kind of the James-to-Capela lob got disconnected early?
COACH D'ANTONI: Draymond is good about faking out, going back. I don't think Clint played a normal game. He was lacking a little bit of energy. But it happens. But we'll fix some things and we'll be better.

Q. Are you going to go on the injury reserve Chris after ran into you?
COACH D'ANTONI: Maybe that was -- no. He got me pretty good, though. But I'm just sitting over there, so doesn't matter if he got me or not. As long as he's okay.

Q. You had them playing your style of basketball once you got out of the first quarter. So you had to be pleased with that.
COACH D'ANTONI: Yeah. Oh, for sure. That's what we want to do. Now, Durant made some hard shots, good shots. And Steph makes a big shot, obviously.

Like I said, defensively I thought we did a good job. We held them to what we needed to do. We have to be better sharper offensively. Uncharacteristically we missed some shots that we could have had. Gave them two technicals which we cannot, on their home floor, you can't; it's hard to make up.

And we could have easily gone to the line another 20 times during the game. So we're okay. We're okay.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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