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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 5, 2019

Kyle Lowry

Oakland, California - Postgame 3

Raptors - 123, Warriors - 109

Q. Nick shared with us earlier that he talked to you before the game and there was assign on the board that said "Let it rip." Tell me what that meant to you and how you think you let it rip tonight compared to how you played the first two?
KYLE LOWRY: I think it was more of a message for the team. We shot 38 threes tonight and we got up a lot of threes, a lot of attempts and just played basketball.

For me it was just coming off being aggressive and not so being passive and trying to get everybody else involved and more so get myself going and let everybody else feed off of that.

Q. When you found out that Klay wasn't playing, did it really feel like this was an opportunity you guys had to try and take advantage of tonight? Was there that added urgency? Obviously you want to win every game.
KYLE LOWRY: Yeah, I mean, when you lose an All-NBA type basketball player in Klay and an All-Star, it definitely changes their team, but Steph had an unbelievable game. 47 points is pretty impressive. But we just got to go out there and do our job, and I think we held them under 40 percent shooting. We played well, we finished the game, and we found a way to win the basketball game.

Q. You had a pretty big breakout game this third game, and the entire team of starters scored in double digits. What did you do to approach this game differently, to really help this balanced attack?
KYLE LOWRY: Kept the pace up, kept our pace up and kept going and trying to get the ball out quick and getting stops and communication and just kept playing. We know that they always can make runs in this building, but we stayed level headed, just continued to kind of just keep going and going and going and staying in the moment.

Q. How was it you guys were able to find an answer, every time they hit a big shot or Steph got a big shot, somebody came up with a play. And also I did see the fan shove you on the sideline -- on the court side there, and how disappointing was that?
KYLE LOWRY: For us we just we know that they're going to make good runs and make shots. But we watched that third quarter Game 2, and we just got to continue to play with pace. And that was the one thing about it, we played with pace half court, full court, and that was a big thing for us.

As for that fan, there's no place for that. He had no reason to touch me. He had no reason to reach over two seats and then say some vulgar language to me. There's no place for people like that in our league, and hopefully he never comes back to an NBA game.

Q. It sounds like Kevin Durant's pretty close, and Klay Thompson may also come back in Game 4. How much over the next two days will you have to monitor that and almost I guess scheme for two different teams?
KYLE LOWRY: Just got to prepare the same way. We're a real defensive-minded team. We know they got those type of weapons. But we got to just prepare ourselves to be focused on ourselves.

And that's the one thing we have always done, is kind of continued to work on ourselves and work on what we can do. We can't control anything else what the Warriors do, we just got to go out there and do what we can do to get better, continue to grow, and see what we can make adjustments on.

Q. The Finals is obviously -- it was a new frontier for a lot of you guys before Game 1 and Nick, what he's gone through this year and the circumstances and replacing Dwane and all that stuff's all been well covered, but how much has he impressed you at this time of year with -- he looks like a guy who has done this a whole bunch of times instead of never before.
KYLE LOWRY: He got a lot of championships in England and in G League. I mean, Nick, he looks young, but he's pretty old. But he's been doing this a long time, man, and his demeanor, like I said this before, he literally has yelled at us like twice this whole season and his demeanor is just kind of just keep going and keep going and figure it out and, all right, this is what we're going to do, this is what's happening.

His mind for the game has been special, and the growth throughout the year has been pretty good for him. He's not a first-time head coach, he's first-time NBA head coach, but the experience that he's had in his many leagues and teams that he's been a head coach before, he's kind of just kind of stepped up and continued to grow with that.

Q. The past years your team has kind of hit a brick wall in the playoffs, and obviously you broken through. Can you share how the team's grown together to fight through? I mean, even down the stretch of this game, this team didn't quit. How have you guys grown to meet those challenges?
KYLE LOWRY: I think we just added a couple great pieces, adding Kawhi and Marc and Danny, with their professionalism, I think their championship -- Danny's and Kawhi's championship pedigree, Nick's coming in as a coach that's won a few championships in G League, and we got Patrick McCaw who got a couple championships. We got a bunch of guys who are professionals, and we got a good veteran group. And we all kind of just understand that this is our job and never get too up, never get too down. Teams are going to make runs, and you're going to not win every game, you're not going to lose every game, but you can continue to grow to the point to play until June, and that was always the goal with this team was to get to June.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Kyle.

KYLE LOWRY: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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