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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS VS. BUCKSMay 15, 2019Brook LopezGiannis AntetokounmpoMilwaukee, Wisconsin - Postgame 1 Bucks - 108, Raptors - 100 Q. Brook, do you feel like this is overdue? BROOK LOPEZ: I don't want to say that. I think we did a great job of just sticking with what we've been doing all postseason long. Shots didn't go in early, but we did a great job of grinding it out, played great defense and just stuck with it. Then things started going our way. Q. Giannis, you guys hold Kawhi to two fourth-quarter points, he takes just five shots. What did you think of the job Khris and Malcolm were able to do tonight? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Amazing job. Obviously, he's the focal point of their offense, and they did a great job just sending him left. He's trying to go right and get to his spot and rise up or go all the way. But I think guys like Brook, Niko [Mirotic] did a great job just being active behind and just show him bodies. Kawhi is Kawhi. He's going to hit shots. He's going to make tough shots. We're trying to make it as tough as we can, and in the fourth quarter it was tough for him. I think we made him feel us the whole game. That's what we were trying to do as a team, trying to make him play one against five. Q. Brook, it felt like you were on the cusp of breaking through and taking the lead multiple times in the second half. Finally able to do it in the fourth quarter and then it sort of stayed in your favor. What allowed for that breakthrough? BROOK LOPEZ: Yeah, we just don't quit as a unit. We keep hounding, keep hounding, keep hounding and grinding, and then we finally got there. There's no quit in our team. I don't think it's really in our DNA at all, in any of our guys. Q. Brook, for a lot of your career, taking 11 threes in a game would have been, let's say, unusual or kind of unheard of, and now you're not only expected to take those shots, you're making them. How do you assess how you've kind of rebirthed your career, and also are you having more fun playing this style than you did in the first half of your career? BROOK LOPEZ: I've always tried to have fun when I go out and play basketball. I obviously love playing the game. But no question I've been having a great time here. It's just a fun group to be around, a fun coaching staff, fun teammates, great teammates, unselfish, just the best guys in the world. I think it's just embedded in the team. We have trust in one another that we can all take and make shots if we're open, and honestly we're frustrated with each other if we don't shoot it when we're open. If we have a good shot, we've got to take it. A lot in the first half, they weren't going down. It wasn't our best shooting night, but if they're there, we have to take them. That's how I feel about each one of us when we're shooting the ball. Q. Giannis, with the way that Brook kind of gave you guys life multiple times during this game, what's going through your mind when you see him finishing inside, blocking shots, doing everything for you guys? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: This is the Brook we all know and we all love. We just want him to be aggressive, especially in this series. We know Marc Gasol is trying to be active. He's trying to help a lot, and [Lopez] is going to be wide open most of the time. He's going to knock down shots like he did tonight. And especially when he's going, we've got to find him even more and more and more. I think he did a great job, also, going for the first rebound, giving us an extra possession, giving us extra points. He's got to do this this series. What else did he do? He did a lot tonight. He blocked shots. He definitely set the tone defensively. Q. Brook, when you finally got that first three to go down in the second quarter, the cameras caught you screaming for what seemed like a minute. Was that all it took was just one to go down for everything just to feel like it was back in rhythm for you? BROOK LOPEZ: Yeah, again, that's what my teammates have been telling me, George Hill specifically, and then this guy [Giannis], too. They just stick in my mind: Keep shooting the ball; you just need one to go down. Keep letting it fly. And that one felt good. I had two other ones that felt like they were right there. We just stick with it. We all struggled a bit shooting the ball; I know I did. I'm so thankful to have a group of teammates that support me 100 percent. Regardless if it's going in or out, they just want me to go out there and keep doing my job. Q. Either of you guys, when you have a week off, you can practice, you can scrimmage, but it's kind of hard to replicate the intensity of a game, especially a playoff game. Was it tough getting back into the swing of things in the opening minutes there? BROOK LOPEZ: I've got you, Giannis. I've always got you, you know that. I think it can be. Like you said, there's no perfect way to replicate the environment in that situation. We scrimmaged. We played against coaches. We had token defense. We went so far as creating jerseys with the Raptors names and numbers on them so we could have a little scout team and everything. But there's nothing quite like being in that environment. Our fans did a great job. They brought it tonight. They were absolutely supporting us. Maybe it took a quarter or two, but I think our mind was in the right place. We were playing with a lot of energy, playing with toughness. Again, shots weren't going down, but we were in a much better place from the get-go than we were Game 1 against the Celtics. Q. It seemed like when you're out there in space shooting those shots, the crowd is sort of living and dying with each attempt. What's your emotional level like on a miss and a miss and a miss and then a make? How does it change for you? BROOK LOPEZ: I definitely get frustrated with myself. But again, I got my teammates' support behind me, and that means the world to me. It does everything for me. It keeps me going and keeps me firing those threes. And to hear the fans as well -- it definitely gives me a lot of support. The fans were great out there tonight. They definitely were a lifeline for us, and we absolutely rode them as well. Q. Giannis, at one point you guys were shooting 17 percent from three. The math says you keep shooting, you're probably going to make some of them, but my guess is you're not in the huddle saying the math, the math, the math. What are you saying to your teammates, what is Coach Bud saying to you guys to get you to do what you do and let it fly? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I think in the second quarter or late in the first quarter he told us to keep shooting the ball if we're open, stop hesitating. I think one play I was open in the corner and I didn't shoot the ball and I think it ended up Khris taking a tough shot. He wants us to trust one another, keep moving the ball and if we're open shoot the ball. That's what we've been doing all year, and that's what we're going to keep doing. Tonight we were able to hit 11 threes. Didn't shoot it great, 25 percent. But at the end of the day, I'm trying to come downhill, Bledsoe is trying to come downhill, trying to make the right pass, knowing our teammates are going to knock shots down. We're going to keep playing the right way. That's what Coach Bud wants us to do. We don't care about the math. Eventually, they're going to go in. If you keep shooting, that's how you win games. Q. How good did it feel that you didn't have to have some superhuman MVP-type performance? What does it say about this team? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: It says a lot, and it definitely feels amazing. Even though I don't play well, the team is able to respond, to hold their own. Guys are coming off the bench playing the right way and being a plus for the team. It feels good. It feels good to be able to come every night and try to put my body on the line and give everything I've got for us to win a game. I didn't have a great game, but at the end of the day, my teammates had great games and were able to get this win. Q. I'm just wondering, you guys haven't played a whole lot of close late game scenarios out in the playoffs. What did you learn from this? And then do you think this was needed to win in not a blowout fashion in order to continue to move forward? BROOK LOPEZ: I think it was definitely needed. It goes to show we can close games out in multiple ways in different fashions. We have a lot of confidence in this group. All throughout the season and in the playoffs, different guys have been stepping up. Different guys have been having big nights. It was definitely good to see us win in a different way tonight. I think going forward, we'd be all right, though, if they weren't all like that. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I think it's good because sometimes when the team faces adversity, you can see how the team responds. I think the team did a great job of just playing hard and responding the right way. I think we need games like this because not every game is going to be a blowout. Not every game is going to be easy. We're going to go back tomorrow, watch the tape, try to get better. And I think this game definitely made us better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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