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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 12, 2019

Nick Nurse

Oakland, California - Practice Day

Q. I know after the game you said six points, final three minutes really not that much. Regardless, it's getting close to clinching at that point. Do you address that in the entirety to your team, or do you just go through individually the plays, the mistakes and just try to get better?
NICK NURSE: We're just addressing the things we can get better at, and certainly some of that segment were some things under our control that we could have done better. That's really all we're focusing on. You watch the game and you pull out the most learning experiences you can -- about 20 to 25 on defense and 18 to 22 on offense and then a good segment, maybe 15 or so, on special teams. Just go through them like any game.

Q. Do you think momentum is real and if so, do you think that a timeout could potentially stop momentum on either side?
NICK NURSE: Now that is a loaded question, I think, isn't it. Oh, my God. Momentum is definitely real in everything in life, from the moment you get up to a basketball game moment. No doubt about it. Sometimes timeouts stop them; sometimes they don't. Sometimes not taking one stops it and sometimes it doesn't. That's kind of the world we live in on the basketball court. You take them. Sometimes you don't and sometimes you do. Deep thoughts. (Laughter)

Q. Steph and Klay, 27 threes between the two of them that they got off in Game 5, and they had 42 as a team or something like that. Obviously, that's who they are, maybe not to that extreme, but you know they're going to shoot a bunch of them. Are there things can you do to run them off the three-point line, even two elite guys like that, and get that under 27 attempts? Are there things can you force them into doing?
NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean, we don't want to give up that many to those guys. I think you got to guard them, got to find them in transition; they get a good chunk of them in that. There was a bunch of loose ball ones, too. But still, that's really no excuse. We got to come up with a solution for that. They had two in the first quarter, I think, where we stole the ball and were heading the other way, and then they kind of ended up with a loose ball and kicked it out to them wide open.

Still, we got to figure out a way to control those two. There's transition. There are pin downs. They're excellent at pushing off to create space. Their screens are long, wide and moving that they're coming around a lot. So you got to work doubly, triply hard sometimes. You got to absorb contact at the start. You got to absorb contact coming off the screen. Sometimes you put two on the ball screens. There's lots of stuff going on out there. But we do need to do better.

Q. Watching Kawhi operate the last month, you get the impression that he's just so cold-blooded. What makes him that way and what's it like to witness it and be part of it?
NICK NURSE: I don't know what makes him that way. Probably, again, not basketball-related things, probably the way he was raised or the environment he grew up in. He's certainly tough, strong and composed. From the first preseason game to now, it continues to be interesting to just watch this guy do what he does. It's without a doubt the best thing about this thing is that somehow I wound up on the sideline getting to watch this guy play up close. It's really cool.

Q. Now that Kevin is out of this series, we know we won't see sort of the death lineup or whatever nickname you want to give the one with Draymond at center. We won't see that again this year, maybe not ever again. What do you think that lineup's impact is on the game and in terms of the move toward position-less basketball? And how much, I don't know if easier is the right word, but it is to prepare for not having to face that lineup?
NICK NURSE: Well, their impact on it, I think goes back a little bit to all the switching. They just pretty much switch everything. That really wasn't that common, to be able to come out and just switch every time somebody set a ball screen or a down screen or the DHO (dribble hand-off) or whatever screen and just switch, switch, switch, switch, switch. Keep every player in front of you and not really have to ever put two on the ball, because they're all pretty good defenders. So that's the biggest impact it probably had on the game. I think a lot more teams do a lot more switching since they started doing that.

Again, we can only prepare for the guys that are out there and what they're going to do. We don't know that they can't still find a lineup with Draymond at the five. We just got to kind of prepare for all possibilities.

Q. That Game 5, did that loss hit you any harder just because of how close the goal was in sight? And you mentioned after the game the decision around the timeout with three minutes and talking of momentum and stuff. Did you revisit that at all and what did you take away from it?
NICK NURSE: Did it hit me any harder? Not really. They all hit you hard. Listen, I'm like anybody that was there that understands the outcome of that one changes things a little bit. But I'll say this: I'm absolutely thrilled to be coaching in another Finals game. This is awesome, right? All these things when you look back on them, every single thing you do, if it doesn't turn out, you wish you would have called another play or had somebody else in or got somebody else a shot, et cetera. I think if you remove that from it and you watch it, we ran a great play out of the timeout where Gasol absolutely got clobbered for a no-call. Kyle had a wide-open three with a minute to go. We ran some nice stuff and got exactly what we wanted? I'm not sure that that timeout had anything to do with about 14 plays after that. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't.

Q. This has been a highly unusual series in that the road team has won the last four games. And if you win tomorrow, it will be five in a row. Why has the road team had so much success in this series?
NICK NURSE: Well, for some reason I think both teams are really good road teams and have been all season. That's one thing. Two, two really tough-minded teams playing, and you got to be a little more tough-minded on the road. And I think a lot of those games probably could have went either way, but the momentum changed in whoever ended up winning them. (Smiling)

Q. I spent the morning talking to Ryan Atkinson, who you know from your days at RGV. What was it like working with him? Did you feel like being in RGV in The Finals over Santa Cruz was any kind of a harbinger for this series? And also what did you learn from the G League that prepared you for The Finals here?
NICK NURSE: Okay, first of all, Ryan is great dude. Loved every day with him. He was a super hard worker. He started kind of as an intern for us at RGV. But he always wanted to get into the management side of things. I remember having a lot of meetings with him about player personnel in my office. A really good worker who is climbing his way up the ladder.

Really enjoyed the series, Rio Grande Valley versus Santa Cruz. My current assistant coach Nate Bjorkgren, who was my assistant coach for four years at the Iowa Energy, was the head coach at Santa Cruz, one of my closest friends. So that was fun to go against him. And beat him. That was really fun. What else? There was a packed house in Santa Cruz that night. It was jumping. It was good. And I think the day we played Santa Cruz was the first time I got a call from the Raptors that morning about possibly coming up to talk some offense with them. So I remember the day well.

Q. Good day.
NICK NURSE: Yup. Good day.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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