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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 5, 2019

Steve Kerr

Oakland, California - Postgame 3

Raptors - 123, Warriors - 109

Q. Even though you lost, it seemed like in that fourth quarter you guys were flying around, diving on loose balls, and just playing really, really hard. Considering all the adversity you guys are going through here in the playoffs, how proud are you of your guys tonight?
STEVE KERR: Oh, very proud. They played really, really hard and gave it everything they had and just ran into a better team tonight. Toronto played an excellent game, made big shots every time they needed to. We never could get over the hump. Every time we fought back and kind of got it to six, seven or eight, whatever it was, they made big shots.

So they outplayed us. They deserved it. I'm very proud of our effort, and now we just got to bounce back and hopefully get back here in here Friday night and hopefully get a little healthier and get some guys back, but we'll see how that goes.

But main thing is you just got to play better.

Q. Is Steph's performance tonight one of the best you've ever seen?
STEVE KERR: Steph was incredible. The stuff he does is, he does things that honestly I don't think anybody has ever done before. The way he plays the game, the way he shoots it and the combination of his ball handling and shooting skills, it's incredible to watch. He was amazing.

Q. You obviously want to err on the side of caution when it comes to injuries, but was there any of the mentality of lose the battle, win the war as it relates to sitting Klay tonight?
STEVE KERR: Well, the whole point was to not risk a bigger injury that would keep him out of the rest of the series. So that was the decision we made, and I feel very comfortable with it.

Never would have forgiven myself if I played him tonight and he had gotten hurt. So you live with the decision you make, you make a wise decision, the wisest one you can, and then you live with it and move forward. So the good thing is Klay has done well the last two days; now he has a couple more days to heal, and hopefully he'll be out there on Friday.

Q. The decision on Klay, did it really come down to last minute, or had it basically been made maybe an hour or so, or maybe even earlier, not to play him?
STEVE KERR: That's, you know, internal business, so...

Q. Based on how many guys you do have out, whether it be in the game tonight or as you start to look forward to Friday, were you at all concerned about minutes and usage of Steph and DeMarcus and some of those guys?
STEVE KERR: Yeah, it's one of the reasons we didn't have Andre on the floor at the end of the game for those last five minutes. He was up over 30 minutes, and this is the only -- these are the only two games in this series where there's just one day off. So we tried to watch Shaun Livingston's minutes and DeMarcus had something going on late in the game, he left the bench to get checked out. And so the guys we pushed were Draymond and Steph, but they're in the primes of their lives, so they're capable of handling that.

Q. Do you have any update on DeMarcus?
STEVE KERR: I think he's fine. I think he just -- he went to the locker room with about maybe three, four minutes left, just to get checked out. I think he's fine.

Q. When you were trying to think of where you're going to get these points tonight without KD and without Klay, if you had known that Steph was going to go for 47 and Draymond for 17, did you think maybe that would be enough?
STEVE KERR: I just knew we were going to score 109 points because that's all we're going to do the rest of this series. So if we're going to keep scoring 109, we got to keep them to 108 and that's the biggest thing. They scored 123 points, shot 52 percent, so it was more about their play, their execution offensively, their shot making. Our offense could have done better. Obviously we didn't shoot it great, but give them credit. They outplayed us.

Q. I was about to ask you about the 109 points that you scored pretty much in all of the games in every game. Do you see this as a coincidence, or it shows -- what does it show to you, that it's more like -- you won with this score, and you lost with the same score; so it's more about like stopping the Raptors?
STEVE KERR: Yes. Defense. Defense wins in the playoffs, especially in The Finals. So we got to play better defense.

Q. You mentioned their execution on offense being a real problem for us, especially early. Kyle Lowry seems to be a real bellwether for that. You sort of held him down in the first couple games, breaks loose tonight. What did you see from him -- what kind of problems did he give you tonight?
STEVE KERR: I think Kyle set a tone, played a great game for them and set a really good tone early. Made some shots, controlled the game, and so he was -- he was a huge factor for them. Played a fantastic game.

Q. Everyone assumes you missed Klay's points, but wasn't his defense as important and perhaps that's why they shot so well?
STEVE KERR: Well, yeah, I mean, Klay's one of our best defenders so we missed his defense. But, again, that doesn't matter. The guy's hurt, doesn't play; then you play the next guy.

As I said, I'm very, very proud of the way our guys competed and played. We didn't play well enough and we ran into a team that played an excellent game. So, a long series. We got to bounce back and move on from here.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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