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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS VS. BUCKS

May 19, 2019

Nick Nurse

Toronto, Ontario - Postgame 3, Canada

Raptors - 118, Bucks - 112 (2OT)

Q. Game of attrition. What do you have to say about those kind of players?
NICK NURSE: I think just in general, we played with a much tougher mindset. I thought we were kind of gritty and we didn't really have much choice there. Those guys had to roll those minutes, and they kept on playing and fighting and doing everything they could to keep us in the game and make plays.

Q. Before the game obviously a lot of people were thinking you were going to make some changes and you kind of hinted that you might make some. Everybody seemed to be of the opinion that it was going to be personnel changes. What made you stick with what you had?
NICK NURSE: Well, I said lineup changes; I didn't say starting lineup changes. We played a lot of different lineups tonight, and we changed at least three if not four of the matchups to start the game. And then we brought Norm in early and Serge in early, and we went big. We never did get to really small, but we were playing, well, quite a lot of different lineups because of foul trouble and double overtime and all that stuff. So I think some of those things, some of those changes, were pretty good to us. But again, I think we just played a lot tougher, man. We were up guarding and we were physical and we were ready to play tonight.

Q. A lot of questions that are all basically about Kawhi here. He seemed like he was favoring his leg at the beginning. Do you have any update on that, and what can you say about his defense on Giannis and the way he defended all game basically?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I think first of all, his defense was probably the biggest key of the game. Not only did he just play good, but he made some huge plays with some steals and rip-aways and breakaways. Offense was hard to come by there for both teams for a while, and any time you can get a steal and a breakout, it's a huge momentum play. But yeah, he was good.

I think he's okay. It was a lot of minutes, but I think he's okay.

Q. Along those lines, he shatters his kind of career high in minutes tonight by like seven or eight minutes. How tired was he? It looked like every time he could get a blow to the bench he was taking advantage of it.
NICK NURSE: Yeah, there was only one time when he looked really, really tired to me. We had a timeout and I asked him if he wanted a quick one. I can't quite remember when. It seems like it was midway through I think the fourth, about six or five, something to go in the fourth, and he said no, he was good. Then we kind of decided that if Giannis came back out on the floor, he'd stay in, and if Giannis stayed out, then he'd take a little break. But Giannis came back in, so he said, I'm ready to roll.

He's probably pretty tired right now, though.

Q. Defending Giannis is a five-man job. Is it any less of a five-man job that Leonard is the primary defender there like he was tonight?
NICK NURSE: No. I mean, it's a team deal with him, right. But again, Kawhi did a great job. You guys watched the game. He was up and not giving him quite as much runway to get flying off of. But so were the other guys that ended up on him in a switch or in different parts of the game. They were all a little bit more locked in. We took steps forward to get physical. The other night we were backing away from everything.

Q. Considering what you went through all season, not knowing when he was going to play, how much he was going to play, how much you were going to play him, the whole load management thing, can you put into perspective what tonight was?
NICK NURSE: I think during the season it never bothered me one bit. We started with a plan that we thought was really sensible because he hadn't played in like a year or something like that, or played very little in the whole season beforehand. So we trimmed his minutes. We trimmed his games. We left him out of back-to-backs. That was only kind of the plan at the beginning, and then we were doing okay and picking off some wins, et cetera, so we were maybe able to load manage maybe more than we were originally planning. It seemed to be going good, and we go from there.

You guys have heard his famous line that he said: These first 82 games are just practice. I thought we were going to see another gear out of this guy, and I think the load management and all that kind of stuff helped. And we'll see.

Q. In the Philadelphia series, a lot of games with low shooting percentages, more grit and grind than anything else. Is that the team's identity that you've formed in the playoffs?
NICK NURSE: Well, it looks like it is. I'm not so sure that's who we were a lot of the season. We were kind of spraying it and shooting well. I think we were the No. 1 three-point shooting team in the league after the Gasol trade and stuff. I still think we're creating a lot of good shots. I'm still hoping some more of them go in. I think they will.

But we are pretty gritty on D. When we played it here for two of the three games, our defense has been darn good. That gives you a chance no matter how well you shoot it. I think we turned it over a lot in the second half, and that hurts your defense. There's no defense for that. So we're going to have to do a little better job taking care of the ball if we want to give our defense a chance.

Q. You spoke before the game about being aggressive, especially on the rim protectors, the long rim protectors. Is that more just a mentality, or is that a schematic thing for you?
NICK NURSE: I think it's a little bit of both. I always say: Offense is about creating space, and if there are certain areas of the floor that are crowded, you've got to move to the free areas. With Lopez in the paint a lot, you've got to go to move to the open space and take advantage of it.

Tonight, again, I think our mentality was just better tonight. Our feet were ready, our hands were ready and like you said, our mentality was a little bit better to go ahead and pull the trigger.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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