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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 4, 2019

Nick Nurse

Oakland, California - Practice Day

Q. The other day you talked about your team's need to score more to get in these games. Do you have to change the way you play, like call more sets, for that to happen? Or how do you generate that kind of situation, given the way you normally play?
NICK NURSE: We're trying to play as normally as we can. It's always a game of rhythm a little bit and you have to watch what's happening. As you know, we talk a lot about our shot spectrum, the shots we're trying to get. We have to get a certain amount of paint touches. We have to get the ball side to side. Those are things you just have to keep an eye on. I think we just had some lulls in those three areas in Game 2.

Q. You coached in the NBA D-League, now the NBA G League. Can you give us a sense of what that's like coaching there and also how that has become a legitimate springboard for this league? Because the Warriors have couple guys from there.
NICK NURSE: The biggest thing I always say is getting the head coaching experience. The interesting thing about the D-League is that one of the things about being a head coach is you have to get up in front of the team and run the team.

You're trying to always as a coach develop chemistry, define roles, get guys to play their butts off. And in the D-League you have so much change in personnel, guys coming and going, that you end up having to do that probably much more than you would at this level or most levels where you got your team kind of from start to finish and once you get those roles developed or some chemistry built, it kind of goes to the end of the year.

You're kind of always getting that disrupted in the D-League. I thought it was a good chance to work at those skills maybe more than you would anyplace else in the world. The other thing I always say, everybody that has been in the D-League is a little better off for it. It's a really great place and really great people. The players, they play hard. I really enjoyed my time there.

Q. I'm sure you heard that Kawhi filed suit against Nike yesterday. I know their disagreement has gone on for a while, obviously. Speaking broadly, not about that specifically, but broadly, how have you guys learned to manage noise? You've had it from day one. Is he staying, is he going, all those things and all the other things that go on from day one to a Finals Game 3. How has this team learned to manage noise and things of that nature when it just seems like it never stops these days?
NICK NURSE: Well, first of all, I learn a lot of things when I come to these press conferences. You guys tell me a lot of things. So a lot of times I don't know about much of the noise until somebody asks me a question about it.

To me, it's part of the job. Like most people, I love listening to all the shows and the podcasts and the whatever. I haven't listened to a one since the playoffs have started. And I miss it. You know what I mean? But it's part of the job to not -- either way, if they're killing you, you're going to get pissed at somebody; and if they're telling you how great you are, then you're going to have another wrong opinion of yourself, right?

I think the players do the same for the most part. There's enough energy that's needed and concentration and focus in executing these game plans and playing your heart out and resting and recuperating and traveling and all the things. I think there's enough to focus on that occupies us.

We just have to try to stay a little bit out of some of that stuff. And like I keep saying as well, like with all the stuff -- I've got a lot of questions about Drake and blah, blah, blah. You don't even really notice that most of that stuff is going on. A lot of that is after the game, before the game, between the games, et cetera. But once the ball goes up, it feels like I'm coaching in Des Moines, Iowa, again.

Q. Can you talk about your impressions of what DeMarcus Cousins was able to do for them in Game 2 and if there was anything in particular that you thought you were impressed with?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, he obviously came out with a certain game plan against Gasol. The first possession of the game he went out and damn near tackled him, and then the ball went out of bounds and he clobbered him again on the way out of bounds. So he was obviously going to go out there and try to physically intimidate him.

He also passed the ball pretty well. He was a big presence in there. I thought he hit a big three. We didn't close out to him quite hard enough. We were there, but it wasn't good enough and he made it. It kind of kept things -- I think we were up maybe 10 and he cut it to 7 or something like that in the first half.

But, no, he played great. And I figured -- he's an All-Star player. He's got tons of talent. He's a big body. I figured as the series goes on and he gets the timing back and things, he'll keep playing better.

Q. Can you just maybe walk us through your decision to go box-and-one with Fred against Steph at the end of the fourth quarter or the last half of the fourth quarter and maybe some of your thinking about being willing to try kind of unusual things in the spotlight?
NICK NURSE: We were having trouble getting our defense set up. We were having trouble at the basket a little bit. We were having trouble with the rhythm of the game there. And usually you use any zone. So it's a type of zone. That's what you're using zone for a lot.

We played some zone during the regular season, and usually you do it when the game is funky and there's a bad rhythm and maybe you can change it just by slowing them down or stopping some of their cutting or whatever.

It seemed to protect the rim better for us and stop some of their cutting. And it was good. I don't know, I was just trying to come up with something to stop them.

Q. Steve Kerr was here and saying he had never seen it in the NBA before, and he said someone threw one at him when he was in grade nine, so he was very proud about that.
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I know, everybody's making fun of me for it, right?

Q. But that's sort of the point --
NICK NURSE: That's what happens.

Q. You were probably subject to a box-and-one at Carroll one time, I'm sure --
NICK NURSE: No, I was never that kind of player, but go on.

(Laughter.)

Q. But the point is, did you just come up with it on the spur of the moment, like on a timeout? And then to have the faith to roll something out there that in that circumstance?
NICK NURSE: Well, in all those things -- first of all, your players have to have some faith in it. I got a sense of, from them, that they were good with it in the timeout.

I was like, Hey, I'm thinking about going box-and-one; what do you guys think? And they were like, well, what does that look like? I drew the box up and who would be where. They kind of liked the looks of Marc and Kawhi being down and Kyle up and Fred chasing. Kyle was kind of the one that said, Yeah, man, that will work, let's go.

That kind of lets you, I don't know, share the responsibility a little bit. We all are on the same page and we leave the huddle and we're all good with it. So that helps.

Q. You and I spoke after Game 1 just about plans to still run the offense through Marc. Obviously Coach Kerr wanted to stop you from doing that. What specifically did inserting Boogie into the lineup do to sort of neutralize Marc?
NICK NURSE: Like I mentioned, they tried to get up and rough him up and play him with some pressure out there on the perimeter. Marc had some really good looks too. In the quarter from hell, the third quarter that we had there, he had like three or four of the really good looks there -- one from about eight feet, one from about 10 feet and then one was a wide-open three.

He did do a good job, though, pressuring him. Marc will be the first one to say that he didn't have as good a game as he would like to have had.

Q. So in Game 3 is it sort of make or miss, keep things the same, or is there an adjustment to the adjustment to be made in your view?
NICK NURSE: There might be an adjustment to make, yeah.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about the Warriors injury situation, and yet we have seen that there have been times when Kawhi was compromised. How would you characterize his physical status right now and his ability to take over some of these games?
NICK NURSE: He's good. I kind of keep saying it, he's good. Really knows his body. I think he's got a lot of minutes in him, 40-plus a night. I think he's going to get his cracks at the shots.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

NICK NURSE: Okay, thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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