NBA FINALS: CELTICS VS. WARRIORS

June 12, 2022

Nemanja Bjelica

Golden State Warriors

Practice Day

Q. This being your first NBA Finals, can you look back on your Turkish league as far as having a mindset going into a championship series, how much has that Turkish championship experience helped you?

NEMANJA BJELICA: You know, I played some big games for my teams and for my national team. But this is a different level. The way how, for us, like players coming in the second unit, it's more like mentally tougher because you've got to be ready when your name is called. It's tough to win four games. It's a great experience for me.

But it's totally different the way of physicality, like amount of talent on the court. I mean, you have ten players who can score at any time. This league is unique and especially these Finals, it's great.

Q. Can you talk about the challenges that you need to go through before games, mental, physically maybe?

NEMANJA BJELICA: I usually don't change my routine. You've got to be more locked in because, you have like now with the score, we have two more games to win. They also have two more games to win. Every detail, every possession is important, so you've got to be ready, of course physically, but at this point you have to have some mental toughness, and just to be yourself and play your role. That's it.

Q. Are you managing to enjoy it as well?

NEMANJA BJELICA: Of course. I am enjoying like every day. It's like for me, to be especially for Golden State Warriors, because when I came to the league, they start building this culture. They won first championship. So sometimes I'm just -- I forget that I play for this team and share the locker room with these guys. That's huge for me.

Q. How have you seen Looney improve as a rebounder?

NEMANJA BJELICA: I mean, Looney, when he came to the league, he was one of the biggest talents, like I am not surprised the way he plays now. He just has opportunity to play more, what he deserves.

Also I think that working with DeJan Milojevic help him a lot but he's a pro. He knows his role and it's hard to find yourself in offense when you have guys like Steph, Klay, JP, so I'm not surprised of his performance so far but also like during the whole year, he played 82 games. This is a great year for him.