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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 5, 2019

Stephen Curry

Oakland, California - Postgame 3

Raptors - 123, Warriors - 109

Q. Congratulations on your career high in the playoffs. My question for you is you played over a hundred games without Klay or a hundred games with Klay. Talk to us about not having him tonight and kind of how that impacted the game.
STEPHEN CURRY: Any injury in the playoffs is tough, but especially a guy like Klay who's been so durable his whole career and especially in the playoffs and the way he had been playing as of late, so it's no secret that we're a little injury plagued now and guys trying to just find a way back to the court.

But the moment is now. You got to try to have "next man up" mentality, like we always say, and just go out and fight. We did that tonight. We can play better, obviously better on the defensive end, but I liked the competitiveness that we had, understanding that we're missing 50 points pretty much between KD and Klay. So we'll adjust. And it's a long series you know. It's going to be fun for us.

Q. As of now, do you expect to see either of them, have them back on Friday?
STEPHEN CURRY: I mean, I'm not sure. That process takes care of itself when -- with the work that they're putting in and our training staff and all that.

Q. Each time you had a big shot, it seemed like they found an answer every time, from multiple guys. How difficult was that? I mean, they just came down and hit big shot after big shot.
STEPHEN CURRY: Yeah, they played well the whole game, like you said. Every time we made a run or got the crowd into it, they either made a tough three or there was a tough foul called and they slowed the tempo down or something went their way.

So it's just how it goes sometimes. You have to tip your cap to all the guys that made pivotal plays in the right times. I think defensively in the first quarter we can get off to a better start to hopefully take a little bit of rhythm away. I think it was -- giving up 36 in the first quarter's tough, especially with out a couple guys down on our end, so we got to correct that for Game 4. But like you said, they played well. They deserved to win tonight.

Q. Steve Kerr told us before the game tonight that Klay was desperate to get on the court. What was his reaction when the training staff told him that he couldn't play? What was that like to witness?
STEPHEN CURRY: I didn't see it, actually. So I don't really know if there were any fireworks or anything like that, but you know Klay was -- like you said, he was giving it everything he had to be out there tonight.

I think wisdom prevailed in terms of this is a potentially seven-game series, and you would like to take advantage of tonight, but his overall health is important in terms of not taking away the rest of the series with something catastrophic happening. So hopefully he's back for game 4.

Q. With Klay out, it looked like you were pretty aggressive right from the start. Did you have a little extra sense of urgency in terms of scoring as opposed to times when maybe you would distribute if you had all of your pieces on the floor?
STEPHEN CURRY: For sure. Yeah.

Q. I'll ask a follow-up. It looked like they had very physical defense against you. I know you're used to that, especially in the playoffs. Anything different that they were doing? Were they any more physical than you're accustomed to?
STEPHEN CURRY: Not really. After two games you start to get a feel of what's available on that end of the floor, just trying to make the right reads. And for the most part, we, not even myself, just we were aggressive getting to the paint and swinging the ball out. We were a little rushed early. But we were just trying to create good offense, and I think this is the third game in a row we scored 109. It's just a matter of our defense and we can't fall into the trap of thinking offense alone is going to win us another championship or letting that end of the floor affect our defense. That will be the biggest adjustment for us Game 4 all across the board.

Q. In Game 2 you guys got pretty breakout -- a good breakout game from DeMarcus. But tonight you kind of seemed to have a little bit of regression, kind of got exploited defensively on the block, only was 1-7 from the floor. What did you see from his game, and what would you like to see him do differently moving forward into Game 4 and beyond?
STEPHEN CURRY: There's nothing different he should do, just continue to play with confidence. It was a rough go in terms of when he had the ball in his hands, there was some calls that were a little iffy, honestly, in terms of him being aggressive in the paint and not being able to finish for a lot of different reasons.

Defensively it's all five guys being on a string, and that's something we pride ourselves on, one guy, two guys aren't going to do the job by themselves and we can help cover each other. So like any great player, if you have a rough game, that resiliency to bounce back and the confidence to know that you can still go out there and impact the game, that's something that he'll bring and we all will follow suit for sure.

Q. Not only did you have a lot of points tonight, but it looked like you were involved with a lot of hustle plays. I'm wondering if you could take us through your approach with that.
STEPHEN CURRY: Just competitiveness and trying to play until the buzzer. It's the Finals, whatever you try to do to win the game. Nothing special, to be honest, it's just trying to make the right play, give everything you got, sacrifice your body when you have the opportunity. There are guys on our team that do that on a nightly basis, and tonight just happened to be in a losing effort. So we got to keep that same mentality and just play a full 48 like we're accustomed to doing.

Q. You saw a lot of Fred VanVleet in the second half tonight as well as in the series and in the regular season meeting. What does he do defensively to challenge you?
STEPHEN CURRY: He's just consistent. They usually try to have him press up full court try and make me work. I just try to make the simple decision, continue to try to get downhill in the paint and, honestly, the way that they load their defense in transition sometimes or even in the half court, he knows he has help behind him so he can be a lot more aggressive on the ball, and they give him the freedom to do that.

But like tonight from the start I feel like I could get to where I wanted to go on the floor. It's just a matter if you make or miss or make the right play, distributing the basketball, and that will continue the rest of the series.

So I know they got bodies that they can throw at me, whether it's him, Danny Green, Kyle Lowry at times, and they have help behind them. Just got to be aggressive like I've been, try to make the right play, and we live with the shots that I take.

Q. Kyle Lowry seems to be a barometer for how the Raptors play. In what sense was that true tonight and in this series?
STEPHEN CURRY: He's such a smart basketball player and he controls a lot of the pace for them. Nights where he gets it going scoring-wise he can make it tough on you because they do have a lot of weapons around and they like to space the floor. He has the ball in his hand a lot as a distributor, but when he can turn it on, putting the ball in the basket, it's just that much tougher.

So he made shots tonight, and you tip your cap to him because he was willing to take them. And we just got to know where he is on the floor, just be able to use length and send bodies at him, make him try to play in a crowd. But I think, historically speaking, in the playoffs when he plays well, they usually go. We got to do something about it.

Q. Coach mentioned that you guys were working hard in the first quarter, even though they got a big lead, you guys forced the turnover and got the rebounds. How proud are you of your guys tonight?
STEPHEN CURRY: I mean, we fought, but we lost. So we got to go back to the drawing board and just recalibrate for Game 4. It's kind of been like a roller coaster type of series these first three games, and I like the -- I like the things that we saw tonight that we can make adjustments on and protect home court on Friday.

So we're going to compete no matter what happens, you can count on that. So just got to execute and play smarter, and no matter who is out there on the floor, do what you got to do to win. It's the Finals, man, an opportunity for us to get back in the series on Friday and take it from there.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Steph.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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