NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS VS. HEAT

September 14, 2020

Kendrick Nunn

Miami Heat

Practice Day

Q. They have a team when you look at their starting lineup or their top five players, no one was drafted any further down in the draft than No. 9. They've got another guy who's a No. 3 pick. You have a lot of free agents, undrafted guys, sort of hungry dog kind of guys. How much motivation do you guys draw from sort of maybe having gone unnoticed and maybe having had to work more to get to this point and to build a reputation?

KENDRICK NUNN: It's a lot of motivation. Like you said, you go down the line and look at the list of guys we have and they have, and we've got a lot of guys that got out of the mud. We love this type of competition and we're looking forward to it.

Q. Do you think that brings a heavy level of motivation, or do you think by the time you get to this point of the season there's only so much? I'm wondering, in other words, the hunger factor, does that ever leave guys who came in in your situation?

KENDRICK NUNN: I mean, it never leaves. You find motivation throughout the season. Every week you find motivation, every day. The next step for us is Boston, Eastern Conference Finals, and that's one of our motivations. A lot of undrafted guys, got it out the mud, like I said, and their roster is a little different, drafted guys, high picks. So we're looking forward to that and competing against those guys and showing our value and what we can do.

Q. Because the Celtics can attack you from so many different angles with so many different guys, what is priority one in trying to be successful against them?

KENDRICK NUNN: Just going up against their guys. They're heavy on their starting five and those three guys, you've got Walker, Brown and Tatum. So just containing those guys, limiting the things that they do, and just out-competing them. At this point a lot of X's and O's matters, but it really comes down to who wants it. You go and roll the ball out and it's competitive, so we want to win, and we're going to go out and show it.

Q. I know you've talked about how it took a little bit for you to find your rhythm with everything you went through a month or two months ago. How do you feel after the last series, and getting to play and also this week of practice and workouts, how do you feel rhythm-wise entering this next series?

KENDRICK NUNN: I feel good. I feel great, actually. I've gotten a couple days -- we've had a lot of time off, so I'm stacking positive days on top of each other during this stretch, so I feel great right now. I'm in a great rhythm and I'm ready to play.