	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS VS. BUCKS

May 16, 2019

Kyle Lowry

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Practice Day

Q. Have you looked at the film?
KYLE LOWRY: No, we haven't. I watched it individually, but we're going to watch it as a team. We'll watch it after we get done with you great people in the media.

Q. In the second half, you guys were like 1-of-23, apart from you and Kawhi. Is that just a weird basketball thing? Or is there sort of --
KYLE LOWRY: Maybe we missed some shots. I think we had some opportunities. We missed a lot of open looks. Missed layups, open threes. We missed a lot of opportunities to keep up the pace. I think that really hurt us. Then they started scoring. So they scored and we took the ball a little slower than we should have. There are a lot of things throughout the game that change through the course of a game. But we let them get more aggressive than us, and they got comfortable.

Q. When you talk about fatigue, you always think about the body. But if you're playing heavy minutes like that, mentally --
KYLE LOWRY: No, I think we've got some real professionals in here and we know what we're doing and we know how to prepare ourselves. Sometimes the shots just don't fall, and their shots fell. They did a good job of kind of swarming the paint and making us kick out. We had to make the second and third plays, and sometimes we just missed some shots.

Q. You guys are professionals and you know how to prepare. It's a really good team. But is there a danger to playing as many guys the heavy minutes that you've been playing them through the playoffs to this point in a series that is every other day? There's not a lot of rest.
KYLE LOWRY: The season is a grueling season. We get paid a lot of money to do this. We get paid to prepare ourselves for these type of moments. We get paid to prepare to be ready and to play the best we can no matter what. That being said, there are a lot of minutes out there that we're playing, and there is some fatigue. But like I said, we've got some real professionals. That's what we do: We go back, we get rest, we prepare ourselves, we mentally prepare ourselves to go into the next game.

Q. When you're tired as a basketball player, where do you see it on the court?
KYLE LOWRY: You see it everywhere. You see it mentally. You see it on the court. Shots are short, shots are long. You make some small mental mistakes. Give up a backdoor. You do this, you do that. There are a bunch of different ways you can find the mistakes. But those are excuses that we don't make.

Q. The defense that you have to play on those guys, helping on Giannis and rotating, closing out on shooters, which you guys did such a good job of through three quarters, how physically taxing is that throughout the course of a game?
KYLE LOWRY: That's what we've got to do. That's how they've built their team. They've got possibly the MVP of the NBA on their team attacking. You've got to help on him. You've got to keep all the sets of eyes you possibly can on him, then rotate and make the X-Out and do this, that and the other. But definitely we're prepared to do that. We've got to prepare a little bit better and make sure we get to the spots and get to the shooters a little bit quicker.

Q. Pascal's primary matchup for the last seven games has been two of the best defensive players in the world. What have you seen out of him, and how do you keep him involved without playing into their hands defensively?
KYLE LOWRY: P, if he makes a couple more shots, then it's a big difference. It's a big difference in the game. I think he's getting all the shots and looks that he needs to get. I think if we can, we get him a couple fast-break layups. I think the teams are doing a good job of getting back. Yesterday, when I had two chances to throw it to him, I didn't throw it to him in that situation. But those are the ones, we've got to get him easier ones. He's so talented that we feel like he can score against anybody. He always has a mismatch. But it's about getting the easy looks for him. That's how we've got to keep him going and get him more involved, trying to get him easier looks.

Q. How different are you guys when he's confident not only --
KYLE LOWRY: He's always confident. I think he's always confident.

Q. You've been down in series before. Is this a familiar feel or is this completely different, and if so, how?
KYLE LOWRY: Every game is different. Every series is different. Every situation is different. We're down one game. We have the opportunity to go in here and win a game on Friday and go home and protect our home court. We can't worry about this, that and the other. We've got to worry about what we learned from yesterday and move forward today and get better for tomorrow.

Q. Is there a way to get Danny the equivalent of the easy buckets that you want to get Pascal?
KYLE LOWRY: Yeah, definitely. We've got to try to get Danny some easy ones. Get him going a little bit easier. Not forcing it. But we've been so primarily heavy on Kawhi and Pascal We've got one of the best shooters in the NBA in Danny Green and we've got to find ways to get him open and get him some looks to get him going a little bit easier so he can get in a little bit of a rhythm. I think that's when we're at our best, when we've got everybody playing well offensively.

Q. He's a really good transition spot-up shooter. Do you need to look for him --
KYLE LOWRY: Well, teams are smart. This time of year they're not going to let him get open looks. We've got to figure out how to get in the paint in transition, drive, kick, swing and find ways in situations to get Danny open looks. We just watch the film and see where we can get better and make an adjustment. One game isn't going to decide a series. That's the one thing about a series, it's the first of four.

Q. When you walked out of there last night, were you thinking, We let this one get away from us? Because it looked like for most of the game you had the better of the play.
KYLE LOWRY: We lost. That's the way I felt: We lost. We lost the game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297