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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS: ROCKETS vs WARRIORSMay 8, 2019Draymond GreenKlay ThompsonOakland, California: Game Five Warriors - 104, Rockets - 99 THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Klay, Steve said how you have been through everything the last five years. How much are you proud of this group for responding once Kevin went down? KLAY THOMPSON: You lose your best player, it's deflating. We got a lot of competitors on this team that play with great heart. Guys stepped up. Steph came alive. Kevon Looney, can't say enough about his performance. Five offensive rebounds, that's just heart right there. Yeah, it was a great thing. Q. Klay, you mentioned Steph. He's been scuffling a little bit with his shot. In the fourth quarter, he was in the middle of everything. Talk about his performance, whether you're surprised by what he does? KLAY THOMPSON: No. We trust the man. I think everybody in the world trusts him with the ball in his hands. His track record has proven it, he's going to come up in the clutch. You saw how savvy he was with the O rebound, missed the floater long but stuck in the paint, two huge free throws from it. That's just the kind of competitor he is. He'll do anything to win. Q. What do y'all remember from the crazy sequence that ended with the layup with four seconds to go? KLAY THOMPSON: I remember falling out of bounds, might have been pushed, whatever. Just wanted to give it up. Saw Loon come to the corner. Shaun made a great play on the ball, just hustled. Had an easy layup on the rim, might as well take it. DRAYMOND GREEN: I couldn't believe this man took the layup. That's what I was thinking (smiling). You made it, though. KLAY THOMPSON: That's all that matters (laughter). Q. From the fans' point of view, when KD went out to the locker room, the air got let out of the building. When that happens as players, how hard is it to stay focused? DRAYMOND GREEN: I think the reason you kind of lose your momentum as a team, and we didn't really have any momentum, you're much more so worried about your teammate, the injury. I mean, that looked like it was way worse than a calf strain. You just kind of worry about that. That kind of takes over your mind. I think we did a great job of kind of fighting through that, doing whatever we needed to do to put ourselves in position to win the game. Q. How high does this rank on craziest nights in your NBA career? KLAY THOMPSON: It's hard to digest it right now. It's definitely up there. The series has been a battle. Each game, such little margin for error. We know we're going to have to be near perfect to go down to the Houston without Kevin and win a game. It's going to be hard. That's what the playoffs are all about, how tough it is to win. It's what makes it so special during the whole run. Q. Klay, how frustrating were those two games in Houston for you personally? How validating was this game? You came out early and drove to the basket aggressively. Was part of that trying to get your shot going any way you could? KLAY THOMPSON: It's frustrating when you don't play up to your standards. I knew we were coming back home. It was the best-of-three. Got to simplify things. I'm never going to waver with my confidence when it comes to shooting the basketball. That's what got me to this point. Just want to be aggressive from the jump, make the right play. It's that simple. But it's the playoffs. There are going to be plenty of ups and downs. We've done this so many times. We're not going to lose confidence over a couple bad shooting nights. That's the way the basketball gods can be. Last week just wasn't my best games. Hopefully I can rebound with a great one on Friday. Q. Draymond, the sequence when you got the technical, hit the three immediately, then Klay, how important was that? DRAYMOND GREEN: Very important. We was able to build an eight-point lead. I think it was maybe two and a half minutes left. When we're up eight points at that point in the game, we feel very confident we're going to win the game. At that point it's just about trusting your defense and not fouling, which I did (smiling). You know, different times in the game calls for different things. Klay found me on the wing. I was able to knock the shot down. We were able to find him up top, he knocked the three down. Two very key sequences in that game, two key shots for us. Q. Draymond, here we are again. What is your recipe for the playoffs? What type of bunny rabbit energized you to play at this level? DRAYMOND GREEN: I mean, I think as a competitor, these are the moments that you live for. Every game matters. Every possession matters. It's do or die at this time. No one wants to go home early. We you pride ourselves on trying to win championships. I know I'm paid to play this way during the playoffs. My teammates expect me to play this way during the playoffs. As much as you want to get out here and play well for yourself, I don't want to let these guys down because everybody's bringing what they bring to the table. It's for me to get out there and do my job to the best of my ability. I've been fortunate and blessed to have some great games and some great playoff runs. Q. James Harden played good, but he had only five points in the fourth quarter. DRAYMOND GREEN: I think we have quite a few guys we like to throw at James, Klay being one of them, Andre, that do a great job. We can play the same defense, he can hit shots, get going. We trust ourselves. We try to make sure we're helping each other out when he gets by somebody, just try to challenge every shot. But he's a great offensive player. You can play the best defense you can possibly play and he can still score. You got to trust yourself. Q. Draymond, when Kevin goes out, how does the offense change? What did you see from Steph? DRAYMOND GREEN: I think Steph got real aggressive. But you know when Kevin out, Kevin is such an incredible offensive player, player overall. What he's able to do on the offensive end is something like none of us have ever seen before. Losing someone like that, there's a big gap that needs to be filled. The one thing I think everybody understood and understands as a whole is not one person is going to fill that role. We're going to have to collectively do that. I think down the stretch, Jonas hit a big three, I was able to hit a three, Klay hit a three. We really used each other. We really have to rely on each other to search and find great shots. We did that down the stretch. That was the difference in the game for us. Q. Do you expect KD to be with you for Game 6? If not, do you point to the film and say let's do that, the point he went out? KLAY THOMPSON: We expect him to be with us in Houston. If he's playing, I'm not sure. It's a tough injury. We'll have to collectively make up for what he does. We've done it before. It's going to be incredibly difficult. It's the playoffs. I know they're not going to feel sorry for us, the media, the fans. It will be a gut check time. We go down there and give it our best effort. That's all we can do. If we do that, I have confidence every man on this team will step up in his absence. We wish him a speedy recovery because we're not the same team without him. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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