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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 13, 2019

Nick Nurse

Oakland, California - Pregame 6

Q. What has it been like, at least in your capacity as a head coach the past year, working with Masai Ujiri, specifically how he's kind of pulled off these acquisitions from Kawhi to Marc Gasol?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, it's great working for him. He's set the goals very high for our organization, similar to what the goals that our staff and our players set, so that's good to be in alignment with where we're thinking, where we want to go. And you're right, he's put together a heck of a roster and some great players and the blend is really good. So I've enjoyed working with him this year.

Q. When you tried to get ready from one game to the next, particularly this deep in a series, I think you guys have only been outscored in four quarters in five games. Do you have to sort of resist the urge to change things just for the sake of change when you look at the five games and say that you've pretty much controlled much of this thing?
NICK NURSE: Great question. I mean it is something you bat back and forth a little bit because you think, here's another coverage we could use or another matchup or we could flip in and out of this coverages or whatever defense we decide to play. Or you just say, gosh, if we just would run down a few more 50/50 balls or shoot a little bit better from three or take care of the ball, you know, some tangible intangibles, do those just a little bit better then you're probably good. Then you sit and you look and say, geez, you only scored 106 points and you lost the game. 106 against these guys is pretty good, you should think you got to score 107 or more, right? So it's a really good question and you battle it back and forth of do you just kind of stick with what you've been doing and try to do it a little bit better, or do you try to break out a couple new things this late in a series. I'm still debating on that.

Q. In the Milwaukee series, you seemed to put an extra emphasis on your offense and I think believing that if execution on that end would help on the defensive end of the floor. Through this series have you, has one end of the floor, have you found one end of the floor to be more important than the other?
NICK NURSE: Yeah. I just, it seems like we haven't talked about it as much. You're right, in the Milwaukee series I remember saying that about every other meeting like this that we had. It is still critical because, again, the transition against these guys is so hard, right. You're really racing back. If you turn it over you're in trouble. They're coming fast and usually dotting you with a three ball. If you don't score in stretches, they're playing with it off the rim on long rebounds or whatever and again they're coming hard. And everybody's seen when Green gets one, he's going to push it and it's going to be super fast pace. And they got some guys that can shoot it on the kickout. So it really is critical for us to, A, take care of it, and B, score it fairly consistently so we can make them take it out of the net some.

Q. So is that end of the floor maybe what you could maybe get stressed a little bit more about during the course of a game?
NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean, and again, I think we have taken care of it pretty well. You always want to cut down on the turnovers no matter what number you end up with. But pretty good, right? We have generated a lot of shots at the rim, we have got to the free-throw line, we have got, from what I consider for the most part, pretty good looks from behind the three-point line. We have got to shoot them a little bit better than we did in the last game for sure.

Q. Pascal struggled in the last four games. You didn't play him the final nine minutes in the previous game. What are you seeing from him and how worried are you that maybe this moment is too big for him?
NICK NURSE: I'm not worried about that at all, right. I think he's proven all playoffs long that, and even all season long, that he's a prime time player. The other night I just if you want me to be totally candid, I wasn't happy with his defensive effort. I thought he just could have done more. He could have been more active, he could have got down in his stance earlier and more often, and just been more of a problem at that end. And that's why he wasn't in there at the end.

Q. Dating back to the game in San Antonio all the way back in January, you guys have played in some pretty emotional gyms. That obviously wasn't the best night. How do you guys think you've improved in those scenarios since then, and given the context of tonight, is it something you talk about beforehand?
NICK NURSE: Thanks for bringing that night up. Appreciate that. We got our doors blown off down there. I haven't thought about that night much, but I do, the playoff games, we have had some up and down moments as everybody has. This team we're playing tonight has had some really up and down moments in the playoffs. That's the nature of this. I think if I'm close to correct, our last regular season game was two months ago. So two months of basketball's going to be some ups and downs in it. I just, after that San Antonio loss, we got on a plane and went to Milwaukee and beat them. We bounced right back. And that's what we normally do. That's what we have normally done in the playoffs. And this is a strong minded, tough-ass group of guys. It really is. And I'm looking forward to watching them play tonight.

Q. You mentioned before the last game that coming out of Game 2 you told the team we only got to take one in Oracle. Can you just elaborate on what message you were trying to get across to them when you said that?
NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean I just, you come in there after a loss, and the importance everybody places on home court, and you really had a chance to grab ahold of the series and all of a sudden you're even. Like they have considered it a huge triumph to come and get one of the two. They're 1-1 and got the momentum of the series. And just so it doesn't seem as disastrous as it may appear on the outside, you just try to calm down and say, hey, we just got to get one. We got to get one, that's all we got to do. We know we can do that. That's it. I'm not trying to, I don't say a whole lot after games. And some of it we just say it to wrap it up and then get on with it and we start looking at the film and really digging in the next day.

Q. For the last however many years there's been a pursuit in the NBA for the super team. And by and large those teams get here. You guys are not set up that way. You have one star but then you've got really good players, deep role players. What does it mean to you to have gotten this far without the super team, and do you think from a broader perspective that this is kind of proof that across the league you don't have to chase those two, three stars to get to this stage?
NICK NURSE: Well, it's not really my area or putting together the team or my thought process. My job is to take the team Masai and Bobby put together and get those guys to max out what they can do, get them to play together, get them to play tough defense, get them to share the ball and get them to handle adversity with some calmness and handle triumph with some calmness. And then you got to look at who you're playing and you got to try to figure it out. I was telling somebody today, I said you look at these things and you say, Jesus, I don't know how we're going to beat these guys. And then you say God, there's got to be a way we can figure it out. In two sentences you go from one end to the other and that's what the job is. You got to respect how good the team is you're playing, because they are, how well coached they are, how tough it is to win these games. And then you got to prepare your guys the best you can and then let them go at it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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