	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 5, 2019

Nick Nurse

Oakland, California - Postgame 3

Raptors - 123, Warriors - 109

Q. Danny Green said before The Finals people would stop him in the street and say, Keep shooting, keep shooting, keep shooting. He said, I'm going to keep shooting. What did you get from him as a shooter tonight?
NICK NURSE: Well, I think Danny's buckets I think boosted our whole team's confidence because we're kind of used to most of the year relying on those. I think that when he banked a couple there and then he kind of kept it going, I think it was just a huge confidence boost all around.

Q. Kyle Lowry, sort of a tough couple games to start the series offensively, with foul trouble. Did you have a sense that he was going to be able to break out, and what did you see from him that led to his great performance tonight?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I had a little talk with him before the game, and his kind of comments to me was he was going to let it rip tonight. So that was good. You saw him aggressive in transition, but, again, usually when he's going good, it means he's hitting the paint, he's attacking off the screen and roll and really getting downhill. That's usually a sign that he's got a lot of his offensive game and confidence going.

Q. Your starting lineup tonight had one of the most productive games I think you've probably had all season long. What was different about -- it almost seemed like five against one a lot of the game.
NICK NURSE: Well, our offense wasn't very good in Game 2 and we knew that was hurting our defense as well. We tried to play with more pace up the court, and we tried to play with more pace in the half court. I thought you just saw a lot more cutting and passing, obviously 30 assists, you saw a lot more shots go in, that helps, right?

But I think when we did struggle tonight to stretch offensively. We just bogged down a little bit and got the ball kept on the side and we couldn't get it out of there a few times, but we just tried it keep it a little bit more in the middle of the floor and we tried to hit the open man and get off, and I think we passed the ball a little bit better tonight.

Q. Can you talk about your length and the size advantage that you had tonight and how that played to your advantage?
NICK NURSE: Well, I think Serge Ibaka had a great second half especially. He was active and was covering up a bunch of our mistakes, or not necessarily mistakes, when we would go put two guys on Curry, they have been great at hurting us at the rim.

And we just we tried to switch a couple matchups and get Serge back by the rim, and he once he gets one or two, he starts getting a bunch of them, and he was, then he gets on the glass and then gets on the offensive side. And I thought that was a big boost to our team was his activity tonight.

Q. He had 47-8-7, but was this one of those nights where you look at what you guys did against Steph and say that you held him to 47, he had to work for pretty much all of it? Were you happy with how -- it's a huge number obviously, but were you happy with the way you guys defended him?
NICK NURSE: Listen, we were trying to play as straight up as we could. We wanted to get back to doing what we normally do. We didn't do anything really early in the game other than just try to play him. He had a ton in the first half. We tried to up our presence on him a little bit with some double teams, but it doesn't really matter, right, I mean, I don't really -- all that matters is -- my dad used to tell me the stats don't matter, just the final score. So we'll just take the win and be thankful for that.

Q. What prompted your pregame talk with Kyle, and what do you think he got out of that talk?
NICK NURSE: Well, it's not like it's a 30-minute sit-down, it's pretty quick, right, and actually one of the players had written that on the board, "Let it rip," on our -- we got all our stuff up there, and there was this little handwritten "Let it rip," and I said, Did you write that? But he said, No, but that's what I'm thinking. And that's the extent of the talk. Sorry, that was it.

Q. With Klay being out tonight and the possibility of his return next game, and as well as KD's, how important was it for you guys to get this win tonight?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I mean, you can't really worry about any of that stuff, right, like every one of these games is critical. And I keep saying we have had a lot of this throughout the playoffs with other teams, guys out, we have had some guys out, et cetera, and you just -- five guys are going to be out there, right, and you can't really worry about that.

Each game's critical, and the next one will be as critical as tonight's was. So it's been like that all through the playoffs, and we just got to guard and play who is out there. That's all we can do.

Q. To that end, Coach, do you think the team really understands how hard it is? I mean, even down towards the end of the game they, you thought it was over, and the Warriors kept coming. Do you think the team fully grasps what it takes to get a win out of this series?
NICK NURSE: Well, I think our team plays hard, right, and I think we expect them to make runs and baskets. And in this game and this day and age, leads go quickly and all those kind of things.

And I give our guys a lot of credit. I thought we answered a lot of runs, right, down to seven a bunch and came back and scored a bucket or hit a three or whatever. Each time they chipped, we kind of answered back. And that's kind of what you got to do if you're going to keep your lead.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

NICK NURSE: All right. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297