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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

May 29, 2019

Nick Nurse

Toronto, Ontario - Practice Day

Q. There was a play Game 6 where Kyle dove for a loose ball twice on the same play. Is that kind of emblematic as to what he does for this team and winning possessions? And I think Masai called him the leader of the team, and do you feel that, that he's sort of the heartbeat here?
NICK NURSE: I think for sure he's been probably a leader since we got here, and again he's a natural kind of leading type personality. He plays the point guard position. He plays a tough brand of basketball. So that's leading by example, the way you play that way. The possession you're talking about, you could go back and find a few of those. I think Game 5 or Game 4, I can't remember which one, down in Orlando he got a rebound late in the game in a one-possession game that kind of sealed the win. It might have been two rebounds again in the same possession in that thing. And not unlike Kawhi getting a big offensive rebound in Game 6 here against Milwaukee.

So he makes a lot of tough plays. He takes charges, blocks out a lot of bigger people.

And he does lead by example.

Q. How much will your defensive success in this series sort of go beyond the game plan and into your players' ability to react and sort of adapt on the fly and even communicate with each other on the fly?
NICK NURSE: It remains to be seen, obviously, but I think just looking back at the series we have played, I think there's been a lot of, I wouldn't say -- some of the adjustments we made were done really on the fly. Some of that communication that you're talking about, that maybe wasn't the exact coverage we were in or coverage we wanted to be in, where somebody would communicate, like you just said, communicate a different deal, a switch or a non-switch or whatever it would be and just make the next play. I think against this team, I think against most teams in the NBA, you have to play that way, especially this time of year.

So I would imagine that we're going to be encountering a few issues, and you're going to have to figure them out and maybe a help defender is going to have to save you at the end or the helper defender may have to save you or whatever. But that defensive stuff starts with the willingness to want to play it and then a great IQ to want to do it. And then, like you said, communication.

Q. The other day Draymond Green went on the record and called himself the best defender ever. I'm wondering what you think and how he compares to one of your guys, Kawhi Leonard, and what it is that makes Kawhi the elite defender that he is?
NICK NURSE: I would say that both those guys are in the same discussion, right? I always think that there's always a discussion of some guys and they're right there. First of all, you've got some physical abilities, you've got some God-given abilities, you've some size, speed, athleticism, quickness. And then you go to the next part of it, and I always keep saying this: You've got a tremendous desire and pride to stop people and make plays and want to infuse your team with enthusiasm to play defense.

What was the second part of your question again?

Q. What is it about Kawhi that makes him elite?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, and a lot of those things. I think Kawhi again takes a lot of pride in being a two-way player. That's again where it starts. You have to want to do it. Then he has some IQ. He has some really good athleticism. He has really big hands that get in there and snatch the ball away sometimes. And I always say that what probably impresses me about him more than anything is when he -- the scoring is great and the big baskets are great and all that stuff, but when he makes up his mind to impact a play on the defensive end, and next thing you know he's got the ball coming the other way and getting maybe a transition bucket. Those are huge momentum plays.

Q. You've coached in England, you coached small college ball, G League, what about those experiences prepared you for this, your first NBA head-coaching job? And along the way was there ever a moment that you wondered if it would break your way and you would get to where you wanted to go?
NICK NURSE: First of all, I think my goal early in becoming a head coach so young was to find out if I could do it. I just wanted to see if I could be a good head coach and then start learning from head coaching. So all those stops -- I don't know how many years it was, 18, 20 years -- of being a head coach, and in some pretty remote places, was still I think a valuable learning experience for me from just running and managing the team and being up in front of a team and preparing scouting reports and trying to figure out chemistry and lineups and schemes.

Again, I used a lot of it as a testing ground. I remember one year we were a full-court pressing team the entire game and I just wanted to see what that system kind of netted or felt like. Like in RGV (Rio Grande Valley), we did a lot of testing of things. It was just all really good like a laboratory. So I guess I recommend that. I recommend for any young coach that head-coaching experience and being up in front of a team is important.

Q. Two-part question: First, I'm just curious if you have any memories of the game of Kawhi against the Warriors where he hurt himself, hurt his ankle? And the second part is at what point or period of this season did you realize that the load management was really going according to plan and you might see the best that this guy has to offer?
NICK NURSE: I do have memories of that game. I watched the whole game, I think it was yesterday or the day before, on tape. So I know it pretty well. It's pretty fresh in my mind.

Q. Anything stand out to you?
NICK NURSE: I'm just trying to watch like I do like any coach does, just trying to watch coverages and things like that. Things that can I pick up that stuck out as far as the way they guarded him and who guarded him and all that kind of stuff. Just trying to gather as much information as you can.

And the load management thing, first of all, I would like to give a lot of credit to Alex McKechnie and his staff. Theey were countless hours in preparation, and really smart ideas and planning on that, to both physically and mentally get Kawhi to where he was able to start playing the way he wanted to play in the playoffs.

When did I sense it? I just kind of started getting a feeling about it and in, I don't know, after the All-Star break, February, March. I kind of kept thinking that he was holding back a little bit or he was getting his 30 points but it seemed like he wasn't expending a whole lot of effort some nights to do it and I was looking and thinking there was another gear maybe coming. Then he said something to the effect of these first 82 are just practice. Then I thought, okay, then he's getting ready to throw it in another gear here pretty soon.

Q. Another Kawhi defense question: But him on the offensive end, the Warriors have probably more guys than any other team in the league that can throw an elite body in front of him - they can throw Klay, Draymond, they're going to throw Andre, I think everybody expects that. How do you kind of anticipate them to defend him and because he has such an innate knowledge of the defensive end of the floor, does that work to his advantage as an offensive player when he's facing another elite defender?
NICK NURSE: I think, first of all, I would say they're going to probably do something similar to what we're going to do. There are a lot of bodies that can guard a lot of different people. I think you are going to see a lot of different people. Plus, these guys brought the switching defense to prominence years ago and now everybody is doing it. So both teams are going to be switching a lot. Matchups naturally end up in one possession with three different guys guarding a guy because there's screening going on. So I think both teams probably go in with the mindset of okay, that's our ideal matchup and your chance to play primary defender if you don't want to switch some stuff and keep a certain guy on him that's having good luck.

And yeah, I just think any of these guys in the league that are such great scorers, they see so many different schemes and defenses. As the years tick by, they will see switching, they will see denials, they will see double teams, they will see come after one dribble. They will see all kind of things that they get used to playing. I would say probably their knowledge of defense translates to how they would defeat some of that stuff.

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