NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS: WARRIORS VS GRIZZLIES

May 13, 2022

Mike Brown

Golden State Warriors

Game 6: Postgame

Golden State Warriors 110, Memphis Grizzlies 96

MIKE BROWN: They took us to the brink in this series. There were a lot of games that you can literally take the coin and just kind of flip it up and it can go either way, and so my hat goes off to Taylor and his group of players, as well as the organization because they are going to be around for a long time.

Next, you know, man, what a game. Holey moly. 22 boards. I don't -- when was the last time somebody had 22 boards? It's fantastic. I think what's more impressive than the 22 boards is I think I ran them 17 straight minutes and I kept looking at him because after the first five he looked like he was dying and then the next two he looked like he was worse, I don't know if he could get any worse and every minute after that I was saying, Loon, hold on, Loon, hold on, and he did.

Klay, you know, you guys have been around here awhile, you know how Klay is with Game 6s. What a time to step up tonight. He was fantastic. Not only you look at his shooting, he had eight boards, and that was one of the things that we stressed was our guards got to rebound. He had eight boards, and on top of that, you know, one of the adjustments we made, we felt like we wanted to put a bigger body on Bane, and he not only scored 30 shooting 11 for 22 but he chased Bane around all night. That's no easy task.

Wiggins. Draymond. Between the two of them, that's 26 rebounds. And I said to you guys before, you know, when we win the rebound game and the possession game, we give ourselves a chance to win the game. And Draymond with his 16, Wiggs with his 10, Klay with his 8 and obviously Loon with his 20, that is remarkable against a team of that size and athleticism.

You know, obviously Steph is Steph.

Look, the last thing I would say, we played two guys that don't get a ton of minutes, and one of them obviously is D-Lee. He was fantastic.

The next one is Belly. It's hard to sit for as long as he has and throw him in during crucial minutes in a close-out game. He was fantastic. We were down and he came up with one or two offensive rebounds that got us jumped started a little bit and energized us. Those two guys, Steve said it from day one, it's about Next Man Up, those two guys did it, and really helped us get the win.

Q. Have you ever seen 70 rebounds in a game total?

MIKE BROWN: I don't think so. I still, I'm looking at the 25 offensive rebounds, and it doesn't look right to me, still, let alone 70.

Q. How debated was the Looney start, and why did you decide to go with it?

MIKE BROWN: It was debated a little bit, but the reality was it was Draymond's call, Draymond and Steph's. It's our job to give our players confidence, and they looked us all in the eye and said, that's where we are going to get our confidence. And they have done it before, Draymond has carried this organization for years with his hard hat.

Obviously Steph and Klay with their shooting but what Draymond does, it's unbelievable, and Steve is going to roll with Draymond no matter what he says and what the outcome is.

Q. Did you almost coach this like a Game 7, make sure everybody gave everything they had?

MIKE BROWN: This is the first time on my minutes sheet this year that I had guys logged for 40-plus minutes. So we didn't want to go back to Memphis.

Q. Wiggins has not been through something like this. Was there a cure why is toy of what he would do, and what did you think of the last seven minutes when you went with the starting lineup to close, what did you see from him?

MIKE BROWN: I saw a resiliency that most people didn't think he had, especially when he was in Minnesota. He stepped up. He was picking up full court. He was switching and keeping bigger guys off the glass. He just sat down and dug in for us. That was the same thing that he did, was it Game 4, for us, at the end of the game. He's shown up in big moments and I hope he gets his due credit because he was huge for us this series.

Q. You've been around Klay Thompson a long time. What do you think this moment meant to him to be able to play like this in a game he's known for and kind of get back to himself?

MIKE BROWN: That's a good question. When I went to give him a hug, and you know, I was ready to tell him just, you know, I wanted to say "I love you" and "great job," and I started saying that. It was crazy.

The only thing he said was, "Mike Brown, I'm going to miss you next year when you're in Sacramento. I'm going it miss you yelling at me telling me to get back on transition defense."

I said, "Okay, Klay."

So you know, that's just -- that's Klay. He expects to go out there and play great. He expects to go out there and play great. But the thing that he did tonight offensively in my opinion, I still need to go back and watch the tape, but I thought the shots he took were great shots. They were fact. One of the things that Steve always preaches is good to great. He was on point tonight with his shots.

Q. Is this the loudest you've ever heard Chase Center? What did you think of the atmosphere overall?

MIKE BROWN: It was loud. I tell you, though, sitting in that seat, for Steve Kerr, just -- you don't -- you don't really hear a lot. You're kind of lost in your own world a little bit. So I know it was loud but it was hard for me to really appreciate.

Q. You mentioned earlier that Steph and Draymond made that call for Looney to start. How did that come about? Did you just ask them directly?

MIKE BROWN: Yeah, we talked to him. On the flight back, and actually, the reality of it is, start talking about it during Game 5 at the end. You know, because we knew going into that game the one thing we didn't want to do, we didn't want to chase a win in that game. As a staff, Steve brought that up to us, he said don't go into the game chasing it.

So we knew there could be a little bit of an emotional letdown. The Grizzlies, they are a tough, tough group, their fans are terrific and their backs were against the wall. So we went in, obviously with a game plan, trying to get it done, and we realized early on, that it wasn't.

Watching the course of the game, especially in the second half, watching different things, you know, I start thinking about a few things and running it by this guy or that guy or this coach or that coach, and then when we got on the plane the next day, I had watched the film and I had some ideas, and so I ran some of the ideas by those guys and they were pretty adamant about it.

At the end of the day, it's Steve's call, and you know, Steve, you always hear this guy or that guy is a player's coach. Steve is a player's coach and he's going to roll with his guys because he's got it done with his guys many, many other times before.

For us, starting with him, it was a no-brainer.

Q. What worked for Wiggins in the fourth quarter? He was responsible for a lot of those offensive rebounds and hit some really tough shots as well in the fourth.

MIKE BROWN: He was just engaged from jump street. This morning during shoot around, I knew he would have a big game because we changed our pick-and-roll coverage, and when we made the change, Wiggs asked, he was like, "You want me to pick up Ty Jones full court?"

I said "Wiggs, you want to do that for 48 minutes?"

He said, "I'm locked in. I'll do it for 48 minutes. You just tell me."

I said, "Okay. We'll pick and choose your spots."

When a guy like that comes to you and says that, you know he's ready for the task at hand.

Q. In the fourth quarter they had no points off turnovers, you guys only had two turnovers. What was going through your mind through those first three quarters?

MIKE BROWN: I just want us to get stops. I felt if we got enough stops, we would be able to shake loose offensively and hit some threes. It's been our trend to turn the ball over in the first half and then do a better job in the second half. We were addressing it the whole game.

We addressed it at halftime. For some reason, I wasn't as concerned about the turnovers. I just wanted to get stops and not give them second chances and I knew that sooner or later, because every time I looked up, we were shooting 32 percent, 31 whatever it was, we'd start making shots if we kept the game simple.

Q. What does it do for your offense when Draymond is looking to score as he was in spurts in this game?

MIKE BROWN: It opens up a lot for everybody, and that was a call, you know, that Steve said. Steve is like, "Hey, we are going to roll with you and Loon to start, but you need to look to score."

Draymond was like, "Damn right, I'm going to look to score." And he did. And that was huge, because when he got the ball, they had to step up and that's where the little dump-pass to Loon was available because of his aggressiveness throughout the whole game.

Q. You mentioned Damion Lee. You've got Kuminga, some other choices there. Were you going with veterans why those two guys?

MIKE BROWN: That was part of it. D-Lee had already sort of been in the rotation a little bit. I just thought Belly's length out on the floor, that added length was going to be good for us, and then you know, Belly has played in big games. He's been playing in big games, he was a pro at like 15, 16 years old or whatever it is and he's played in some huge games.

I knew at the end of the day he wasn't going to be rattled, shook or anything like that even with him not playing any minutes. And then on top of that, he would still space the floor and have to be guarded and those type of things, especially with them having Steven Adams on the floor and then Jaren Jackson.

Thank you, guys.