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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 12, 2019

Danny Green

Oakland, California - Practice Day

Q. How would you describe how strong Kawhi is?
DANNY GREEN: Hard to describe. But he's a very good player and part of the reason is because he's a strong player. He's a physical specimen that can move guys out of the way and get to the rim and get to his spots knowing that you know where his spots are, and you can't really stop him. It just shows you how much his strength comes into play.

Q. Tomorrow's the last basketball game in this building. Is that something you guys are aware of, have talked about at any length, and what do you expect out of the atmosphere?
DANNY GREEN: No. We haven't really looked at or talked about those things. We are thinking about it one game at time, game by game and we have an opportunity here to win. Whether it's here or in Toronto, it's a basketball game. Championship teams have to win on the road. And it seems as if both these teams have been playing better on the road. We have to continue to try to do that and hopefully win the next game and not allow it to go or extend it.

Q. Does that surprise you given how important home-court advantage is in general in the NBA, especially in The Finals, how much success the road team has had?
DANNY GREEN: Yeah, a little bit. Usually teams play better at home. But in this series it's very different, it's rare. Both teams have pretty much executed and done their job on the road. We want to continue that, play our best basketball, and continue to play better basketball. Regardless of whether it's at home or on the road, we need to step up, all of us individually and as a group and play better.

Q. You've hit some of the bigger shots of anybody in this league in the biggest kind of pressure stages. That's a hard thing to do. It's like back nine of the Masters kind of Sunday stuff. What does it take to kind of hold yourself and to step into those moments with kind of clarity and focus and not be scared of them?
DANNY GREEN: Just being comfortable with it and getting used to it. I have to give a lot of credit and commend a lot of my coaches in the past, especially in San Antonio, with Chad Forcier and Will Hardy, even before that, of trusting me with taking certain shots. Pop put me in positions to take big shots and so you take them and get comfortable with them and get used to them. And like a guy like Kawhi, he's used to the moment. When you're used to the moment, you kind of rise to the occasion. When you're comfortable, you have fun and think these are the moments and times and positions that you dream of being in when you're a child, a kid. You play in your driveway, wherever it is, counting down, five, four, three, two, one and taking those game-winning shots or game-winning free throws. And you want to be a professional and step up, but you only to get used to it by being put in those situations. So a lot of it has to do with my past teams and coaches of allowing me to step up to the occasion and be comfortable with it.

Q. You guys were up six with three minutes to go. I don't need to remind you of that. You've been closer than that at certain other points of your career. Is there an importance of addressing that and then moving forward in the moment, or do you just try to focus on the actual basketball rather than how close you were?
DANNY GREEN: Both. Obviously this was an opportunity, a missed opportunity, but luckily we have a lot of basketball to play and other opportunities to get it back, which we'll address it and then you move forward. You don't want to dwell on it, you don't want to harp on it, you don't want to let it seep in or leak out or let it drain you, because that can be an emotional blow if you let it. But we don't want it to be an emotional blow to our team. We want to stay physically and mentally and emotionally confident and not doubt ourselves and understand that we know we can play better, offensively and defensively. We only lost by one. So we continue to do what we have done in the past or previous games to that game. Figure it out, and then stay to their bodies and not let them get as many threes. They shot very well. And if we shoot better, we know we have a pretty good chance at winning the ball game.

Q. I know the year after you guys lost that one in seven, Pop said he knew he had to address it head on and there couldn't be dancing around it. Do you remember any specific conversations or any specific players who brought up, like, let's not dance around this, let's deal with it head on so we can move forward, which you guys obviously did.
DANNY GREEN: Yeah. Back then it was very different. Usually he brings in the film the next year coming in. So we addressed it the next year coming in and it was head on. I don't think at the moment he would have addressed it too much because we had another game to play after Game 6. But after Game 7 when it was over, the year -- the next year we definitely addressed it in film. And we prepared every day as if we were going to get back to that point.

Q. I'm sure you've played through injuries in your career. Obviously we saw what happened with Kevin Durant. How difficult is it for you guys as players to balance protecting your long-term future and with getting out there and helping your teammates and just doing what you love, which is playing basketball?
DANNY GREEN: It's very difficult. That's why we have our staff and our coaches, and those guys help to protect us from ourselves a lot of times. Because we're so competitive, we want to play so badly regardless of what the injury, we think we can fight through it. And he's a true warrior. He had nothing to gain from playing the other night and everything to lose. So for him to go out there showed a lot of heart, just for his brothers, his teammates and wanting to win, knowing that he had an injury that could possibly change his whole career. So there's a lot of times where it's very hard to dictate, manage, and mentally say, I probably need to sit down, or I probably need to take myself out. That's why we have a lot of those people around us, to help us protect us from ourselves.

Q. Have you ever been in a situation, obviously, you don't have to get too deep in it, where you tried to beg your coaching staff or training staff, hey, let me play tonight?
DANNY GREEN: For sure. There's been plenty of times. Even in the past year I probably, last year I probably should have sat out more than I did. But the reason why it got worse than what it was is because I continued to play on it and tried to fight through it.

Q. You guys have had some big games in this playoff run, you've put together some really good defensive stretches, whether it be a possession or two or a stretch of like three or four possessions. Is there one that you can bring back that you thought was particularly good or particularly important along this run?
DANNY GREEN: During the series or last game?

Q. Yeah, any, even during the Philly series, the Milwaukee series.
DANNY GREEN: There's a bunch of games that I could put together. We had some really good defensive stretches or defensive games. Very few games where we had lulls and the team scored over 115 or 120. A lot of times to keep them in the low 100s or under a hundred is tough to do. But each one of them is very important. Each game is important, and we probably need to be even better next game if we want to try to win this series.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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