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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS VS. BUCKS

May 16, 2019

Mike Budenholzer

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Practice Day

Q. Do you think you will start Malcolm [Brogdon] next game?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: No.

Q. Were you pleased with what -- he started to look like old Malcolm again.
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Yeah, no, I was very pleased with him. I thought he played great. He had a huge impact on the game in a lot of different ways. I just feel so fortunate to be adding Malcolm back into our mix and hopefully getting deeper and stronger as we move through the Playoffs.

Q. When you come back in here the day after a cold shooting night, do you chalk it up as a cold shooting night, or do you do anything differently, or what do you tell the guys today?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: There's some things we can do better execution-wise. I think there's some shots that we need to take. We have kind of the ultimate green light pretty much to everybody, and there were a few times where we passed up good looks and ended up with not as quality of an opportunity, and some of our execution, some of our spacing. And some nights you're not going to make shots.

But I think to not look at our execution, look at our spacing, look at areas where we can hopefully produce or create great opportunities, mostly on film, we're not doing anything in practice, but we did that.

Q. How about the other side of the ball? How was your execution defensively?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: I thought we got better as the game went on. I think either fortunately or unfortunately, as the coach, fortunately, the players not so much, we had a lot of film to look at as far as where we weren't good and areas where we hopefully can get better.

I think I give the guys a lot of credit for improving and getting better, kind of quarter by quarter, and finishing really strong.

Q. There were a lot of times where they were sagging off [Eric] Bledsoe, kind of giving him space. When he gets the ball with that much space around him, how do you strike the balance of him being aggressive and attacking versus spotting up for threes?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Again, it's something that not just Bled but everybody has got to walk that line, and that's a little bit what I was talking about earlier, we need to take good open threes when we've got them.

I think Bled had some chances or some looks that I'd love for him to take. He knows when he's in attack mode and he's attacking the paint and creating opportunities for himself and others, that's kind of the best of both worlds.

We need Bled to do both. He's going to get open looks. The whole team is going to get open looks, and then we've just got to shoot it with confidence and sometimes maybe get a second drive and a third drive and create even more open looks.

Q. How do you think you guys handled all the defensive focus on Giannis?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Yeah, you know, we don't post a time, but there was definitely some clear-cut, old-fashioned double teams. I think we can get better. But there were some -- I think Giannis beat the double-team one time and Khris [Middleton] shot it once before the double-team could get there. And I think can our spacing get a little bit better, our activity on the back side of the double-team? I think we can get better at those things.

Q. Kyle Lowry, was it just a spectacular night, or are there things you can do to shut him down?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Certainly he was spectacular. He played really, really well. Credit to him. You know, just like with anything, I feel like there was maybe a couple where we could be better, we could do some things to maybe prevent him from getting as clean a look as he got, and then a couple of them you just tip your cap to him. He played really, really well.

Q. Talking to the players last night, they praised you for having confidence instilled in them and the whole let it fly movement. How long did it take for them to buy into it, and do you see Game 1 as a reflection of that buy-in?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Well, certainly there's some examples of particularly Brook [Lopez] late, catching and shooting and letting it fly, and Niko [Mirotic] had a huge one in front of our bench. You know, it's -- we get this question a lot. You tell the guys to shoot it, they usually like it. The buy-in, it's not like asking them to go and plant flowers or something like that.

Q. Talking with the Raptors this morning, they said it wasn't fatigue that got them, it was they allowed the Bucks to be more aggressive in the second half. Is that how you would describe it as a coach, or was it just knocking off the rust?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: You know, I do feel like we were aggressive in the second half. I think defensively we got better. It's impossible for me or really anybody to speak on their fatigue. They've played well together. They've played a lot together. And hopefully maybe we did knock off some rust as the game went on, and that hopefully can explain why we got better from the start to the end.

Q. They still have four guys that were at 40 minutes or more, which in a seven-game series that has to wear you down at some point. Are there things you can do to maybe force the issue a little bit, or is it your style of play does it tire the opponent out?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Yeah, I think hopefully for us, hopefully we play a style that defensively we make you work for everything. We make everything really difficult. We take care of the glass. And we always want to play fast with a lot of pace, and not just in the full court but the half court. We want to move the ball, move people. And in theory, that should hopefully make it difficult on your opponent in the sense that they've got to keep moving, they've got to keep sprinting, they've got to keep getting back, they've got to work for everything. Sometimes theories work, sometimes they don't, but hopefully we can just keep grinding on them, make everything hard.

Q. Since Gregg Popovich kind of has mixed feelings about the three, when did you fully embrace the three?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: I think he's embraced it more so now. He's kind of just going counterculture and just being -- he loves to create a little bit of a fire. So I think any coach, whether it be in San Antonio or Los Angeles or Chicago or wherever it is that they've won championships, usually teams that win at a high level make a lot of threes, and that's a big part of the sport.

Q. Do you believe in momentum in a seven-game series, that you guys can carry over from 1 and 2?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: You know, certainly things change and there are momentum swings in a series. You've just got to kind of take it day by day and game by game, and you can't be -- how you react to a loss is important, how you react to a win is important, and just kind of the more steady you are, hopefully you can kind of sustain or find your way through whatever swings may happen in a series.

Q. After the last couple series being kind of spaced out and having some time in between, do you like having games every other day now?
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: I think so. I think it just creates a rhythm and everybody kind of understands, and maybe one time with two days in between games is the perfect world. But to play seven just every other day, it's better than having big chunks of days off and a bunch of time spread out and the series spread out.

Q. Wouldn't it be better just to play four every other day? Why do you want to do seven? (Laughter.)
MIKE BUDENHOLZER: Hey, after four, it could be 2-2. You know, we'll just figure it out as we go.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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