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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: TRAIL BLAZERS VS. WARRIORS

May 18, 2019

Steve Kerr

Portland, Oregon - Postgame 3

Golden State 110, Portland 99

Q. On starting Damian Jones.
STEVE KERR: Good experience for him, too, but he picked up the early fouls; and with what Portland did, they made some nice adjustments in the way they played. It was a better matchup for Jordan Bell and Jordan came in and played extremely well.

Q. What was going on with [Andre] Iguodala in this game? Injury?
STEVE KERR: He was sore. I think lower leg. He just had some soreness and he's going to get an MRI tomorrow. So we didn't want to risk anything and put him back in the game. So when we took him out mid-third, trainer said that will be it for him. So we'll know more tomorrow.

Q. You're plus 55 in the second half of the series. How much do you think the way your minutes, the distribution in the series is going, how much do you feel like you maybe have the fresher legs in the second half?
STEVE KERR: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear.

Q. Plus 55 in the second half?
STEVE KERR: 35?

Q. Plus 55 in the second half in the series?
STEVE KERR: Oh, the second half, yeah.

Q. You're giving spread minutes all around. Do you think you guys have the fresher legs?
STEVE KERR: I don't know about that. I just think that our bench is giving us great minutes, and that's been really key for us. You know, even on the road in a game when we were down 18 points, none of our starters played 40 minutes in a playoff game. So I mentioned the contributions off the bench, and the number of contributions, the number of players who came in and contributed, I think that's a real key. We can keep the game moving and really gain traction in the game when those guys were out on the floor. That fourth quarter run was really key for us.

Q. Obviously Draymond has had a lot of games like this in his career but do you think this is his best stretch of games of his career?
STEVE KERR: He's done so much here, it's hard to look back and say what's the best, what's his best stretch. I just know he's playing unbelievably well right now. He's playing with force. He's playing with discipline. He's playing under control. He's not letting anything bother him. You know, officiating, bad shots, turnovers, he's just moving on to the next play. So from that standpoint, as good as he's ever been.

Q. What's been the key to kind of maintaining discipline and pressure defensively against [Damian] Lillard and [CJ] McCollum in this series?
STEVE KERR: Well, they put so much pressure on us, and I'm not sure we were that disciplined tonight. We jumped at I think three three-point shots where they drew fouls, so we gave them nine free throws.

But we're just trying to put, you know, as many defenders on those guys as possible because they are amazing scorers, and you can't stop them with one guy. So we're just trying to have a lot of help defense available, and you know, send fresh bodies in there and do the best job we can.

Q. Because of the way you guys play, your pace, you score a lot of points, shoot a lot of threes and the soft spoken nature of most of your stars --
STEVE KERR: Most of them. (Laughter).

Q. Do you think that the toughness of this team has been underrated over this run that you've had?
STEVE KERR: Maybe it's just not highlighted but you know, it's so hard to win a championship in this league. The competition is so fierce and it's a two-month journey once the playoffs start. You know, they have been to the Finals four times, so that tells you all you need to know about their toughness and their competitive desire.

Q. With Kevin Durant out, everybody is called on to do more, but in Draymond's case, does Kevin's absence affect him especially in the way that he's able to initiate to run down the floor the way he was doing tonight?
STEVE KERR: I think the biggest thing is he has the ball in his hands a lot more. You know, with Kevin out, he's a guy who was averaging 34, 35 points a game in the playoffs when he went out. I think, you know, the best player in the NBA right now, Kevin Durant.

So Kevin obviously is going to have the ball in his hands an awful lot. He goes down and all of a sudden that changes the responsibility of a few different players. It provides more opportunities for the bench, but it puts the ball in Draymond's hands a lot more.

So you can look up the usage rate on one of those websites and figure it out. Ethan [Strauss] probably knows.

Q. Steph [Curry] really took over early in the fourth quarter. Did you get a sense that maybe he sensed that this was an opportunity to really kind of put them away in this third game?
STEVE KERR: I think we all sensed that. We've been down this road before many times. We've been up 2-0 quite a bit and I don't think we've been that great in Game 3s over the years. That's all we talked about the last two days was we have an amazing opportunity to seize control here. That's what I think this was about, respecting our opponent, knowing the magical run they have been on, how tough they are to beat in this building, and understanding that this is the game.

You know, you come up here for two. The first one is the one you want to get because if you don't get the first one, the second one becomes much more difficult. So I think our guys understood the sense of urgency and played that way, especially in the second half.

Q. When you talked to your team now up 3-0, if you guys win Monday, I believe you have nine full days of rest. How much of a point of emphasis will you make that to the rest of the group knowing what's on the line in Game 4?
STEVE KERR: We won't talk about anything other than Game 4. You know, what's after that doesn't matter. You know, it may be Game 5. What's after that might be Game 6.

We just focus on the next game ahead of us, and we've got some guys banged up, but we've done a really good job. I'm really proud of this group for playing through a number of injuries that we've had, you know, with Kevin and DeMarcus [Cousins], and now Andre. It's a remarkable group to continue to press and play at this level without so many key guys. So very proud of them.

Thanks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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