NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CLIPPERS VS. SUNS

June 30, 2021

Jae Crowder

Phoenix Suns

Game 6: Postgame

Phoenix Suns 130, LA Clippers 103

Q. Take me back to coming here to this team and then all the way up to tonight coming up big in this game and helping your team so much. And just you've been through this through these playoffs before deep runs in the playoffs, how much more special I guess is this one?

JAE CROWDER: It's amazing. I knew our potential. I knew where we could get to, the level of basketball we could play, when I first got here. I just knew it was a special group. I knew we had a chance to do something special. We just stayed the course throughout the whole season, throughout the whole postseason. We have been just staying the course and believing in one another and trying to perform to the best of our abilities together. It feels great.

Obviously I was here [in the NBA Finals] last year. My mind is already thinking about four more, but I'm going to embrace this and just take it all in tonight. I know it's hard to get back to the Finals, to be the last two teams standing. I'm going to embrace this and then tomorrow I'll switch my mindset to four more. So it feels great.

Q. Monty was just saying when you're watching these moments from afar for guys when you're in the league and you've never had one, you never know when you're going to get there. With the way last year ended for you, did you have that kind of moment and just how does it feel now to be back in this position?

JAE CROWDER: I'm chasing it. I was chasing it. That's all can I really tell you. That's my motivation. That's what I've been preaching to the guys. Yeah, we're a good regular-season team, but we're preparing for something bigger and that's the postseason. That was my message pretty much the whole season when things got tough in our regular season. But for myself, yeah I'm chasing that. I'm chasing that feeling again. I'm chasing that moment. I was two games away from hoisting a trophy. It definitely hurt, but it definitely gave me some motivation and I'm glad to be back here playing for it all again.

Q. Seeing Chris Paul in that mode, what was that like watching him do what he did?

JAE CROWDER: It was great. Just seizing the moment. We knew coming into this game it would be a tough environment to just get the thing done, but I knew we were capable. We talked about it this morning. We just wanted to seize the moment whenever the opportunity presents itself. I think he understood that more than anybody. He just tried to seize the moment. I think he controlled the game from the time we came out of the halftime. He just controlled the game, whether it be getting us in our sets, whether it be him making that play. He just controlled the tempo of the game. I think that's when he's at his best. It was great.

I kept asking him in the fourth quarter, can you taste that? Can you taste it? He's like, no, no. I said, it's all right, come on, we're going to keep playing. Five minutes to go we're up 21. You taste that? No. He goes back out bang, hit the top-of-the-key three. I'm like, all right, he's still feeling it. It took us to about to get subbed out of the game in the fourth quarter. Now, he said, I taste it now. I taste it now.

But it's great to see him get over that hump in his career -- 16 years he'd never been past this stage. So it's great to give him that opportunity to just play for it all, be the last team standing. It's great to be a part of it with him.

Q. You mentioned that you felt something at the beginning of the year that this could be a special team. What was it about this group or did something happen early in camp that you made you think that or just take me back to that moment?

JAE CROWDER: I knew it was going to take time, but I just knew our younger guys were fearless. I knew what our veteran players would do in the moment, but I felt like my whole mindset when I first signed to this team too, I was just like, now I got to be a leader and bring the young guys ahead of the game a little bit, bring them around, let them get used to some tough basketball, put them in situations, talk to them. I just felt like our young guys are fearless. They always watch film. They always work. And you can work from that. You can build from that as a team.

As our young guys get put in these tough situations, we would allow ourselves to grow just by learning and being able to just embrace anything that is getting thrown at you. Coach threw a lot of stuff at our young players and they just embraced it. At the beginning of the year, we just tried to figure it out. But I knew our younger players were just fearless.

I just felt like I knew what C, I knew what Book, I know what DA, I know what I'm going to do. I just want to know what the other guys will do, especially in going to the postseason for the first time pretty much half of our roster. So once I sense that the guys were going to work and watch film every day and take their job serious, I said we're in a good situation, no matter what.

Q. How do you sum up the gauntlet you guys went through. You take out the defending champs, then the MVP in the second round and then the Clippers who have been basically top of the league for the past two seasons?

JAE CROWDER: We did it one game at a time, one series at a time. It's tough, but we never looked ahead, we never looked back. We took a loss, we just tried to find solutions, find answers to it and get better. I think we never dwelled on a loss. We never dwelled on disappointment. Never got too happy with achieving goals and stuff like that, winning ball games.

I felt like our level head, and Coach doing a good job of leading that charge. Just keeping us level, keeping us engaged whether we win or lose. It's great. It's great. That allowed us to grow. It allowed us to come out after a loss, like we just had the other night on our home court, and perform like we did tonight.

Q. Does the nature of the opponents do anything for your confidence and belief headed into the Finals no matter what team you play?

JAE CROWDER: I think leading up to the Denver series, obviously you take out the champs, that does definitely get you going a little bit, with your team morale, confidence-wise, our younger players confident knowing that we took down a great team, defending champs. That definitely played a factor in that Denver series. But every series obviously gains momentum. You gain momentum each series. We took care of business in Denver. Had a 2-0 lead here and faced a good LA team and fought back.

Q. You've been a part of a lot of special teams and runs in the playoffs. Where does this rank for you personally? And do you are you still keeping hold of your promise to salsa with the city of Phoenix if you guys get four more wins?

JAE CROWDER: Yeah, this is up there with my one of my best teams that I've been a part of. Especially in these moments. Obviously I won the conference [finals] twice, last year and this year. But this is a great moment for me. It's a great moment for our team, organization, the city of Phoenix. Just everything they have been through the past 10 years of not even making the playoffs and we come and trying to do something special here. So it just feels great. It's great to be a part of it with my guys and my teammates and my coaching staff and the city, knowing the city is behind us.

And yeah, I'm keeping my promise to the city. I got a salsa move once we get this thing done. Four more wins I'm going to salsa, you better believe it. You better believe it.

Q. You mentioned Chris finally getting over that hump and getting to the Finals. He's clearly a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but what do you think it this moment means to his career and legacy finally being the Finals?

JAE CROWDER: It puts him in elite -- whether we win or lose, it puts him in elite, just leading his team to the dance. It took him 16 years. That tells you how hard it is to get to this moment. He's preaching that in the back, like it took 16 years to get to this. That's a long time to fight, to have something motivate you for your career. It's great to be a part of it. Definitely puts him in elite category with players, special players that have came through our league, honestly, to put it that way.

We're going to for sure stamp it with four more wins. I think you stamp his legacy, his career once we get these four more wins even more. So that's the goal.

Q. We saw the emotions spilling out on to the court after the game. Can you describe what the scene was like in the locker room?

JAE CROWDER: I mean, you know, a lot of dancing. We got young players on this team, so we got some dancers. A lot of dancers. Some music playing, some hugging, a couple tears from a couple guys from the coaching staff. Just a lot of blood, sweat and tears and sacrifice.

This is a tough year. I'm not even going to lie to you. It's a tough year for everybody. Guys getting in and out of protocol. You never know what may be thrown at you that day. At the end of the day, our team did a great job of taking the blows. Whether we're missing a player, just take the blows and just try to do it together. Do it collectively as a unit, as a real unit. Not dwelling on the things that are going wrong with our season or wrong with our players. We just took whatever came our way and we just embraced it. I think that's that makes this moment even more special. I think you saw it on the court. It just hit everybody. It's a special moment for us to overcome.

Q. I would like to know what was going on when Beverly shoved Chris. Nobody seemed to react. It seemed like it was real calm, real collected, real poised. What was it like for you when Beverley shoved Chris?

JAE CROWDER: They broke. We know we broke them. There's no better sign of defeat than knowing that moment, that moment where it's like competition meets and we just -- you can't do anything else to help your team overcome that situation. He just broke. That's what we were trying to reach. We were trying to reach that point without even trash talking. There's basketball trash talking, but we just wanted to reach a level of togetherness and competitiveness to overcome whatever comes with this game. We knew it was going to be a tough one. So once we knew we got the game won, we knew that at some point they would break. I think that's basically what you saw. You saw a breaking point with one of their leaders in their locker room. And then that's a greatest feeling to have, especially in the playoffs. Such a great feeling.

Q. What was it like to be on the floor for you during the third and fourth quarter when Chris was living that moment and getting so close to the goal that you know he's wanted to for all of his career and all of his life?

JAE CROWDER: It was great to be a part of it. That story will be played years, years down the road, about his legacy and about what he has done for this organization. I'm glad to be a part of it with him. I'm glad to be his brother. Like I said, you heard me, I kept asking him, you taste that? Like, you taste that victory? And he's like, no, I don't taste it. And we're up 21 points. He wanted to seize that moment. He wanted it so bad, you could tell.

His focus this morning when he first woke up, I saw him at 8 a.m.. His focus, he was ready to go. He was smiling. He was still focused and having fun with it. And I felt like that definitely brought everybody else up like on the same plane as him. Just be focused, have fun with the game and we're prepared for this moment. I think it showed. Of course he was prepared and he did a good job of just leading us.