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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v MAVERICKS

May 28, 2006

Mike D'Antoni

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Three

Q. Mike, Sam Smith chose to golf the first two games rather than come out here so can you tell him what's happened?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Sam is 1 to 1.
Q. Only go to the series in Phoenix. I have a question, then, since David Moore is not taking this as seriously as we should?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: They're battling over confidence. I read that. So that's good.
Q. Can you compare Dirk Nowitzki last year in this series, you know, not this round but when they played him versus this year?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: You know, superstar in both, probably trying to drive more this year, trying to be more of an inside presence, less three-point shooter. Just as dangerous, just as valuable, just as good.
What's he averaging, one more point than last year, something like that. So I just -- I think he's causing more problems because he's getting to the line and that's -- that slows the game down a little bit for us and makes him more dangerous.
Q. Are they the toughest playoff foes so far as far as one through four guys to guard?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Oh, yeah. You know what, that usually happens when you go further in the playoffs. It's amazing how that happens.
(Laughter) Okay. Here we go.
(Laughter)
Q. Mike, most coaches are deathly afraid to turn control of the game over to their players. You're just the opposite. Where did you develop that style of coaching?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: I don't know if I developed it. That's how the coaches that had me, they did it with me and we were successful. And kind of played that way. And I think when you have a good playmaker and it's really kind of natural to let Steve go with it. And we not only have him but the other guys -- you know when they're unselfish trying to do the right play and you know in their heart they're going to do the right play you give them more freedom. But it's a little bit personal driven.
Q. Dirk is going to get his points. You said that. Is Josh the bigger concern, not letting him get off as much?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: He's definitely a concern. We need to, especially when he gets more than 20, 18, whatever it is. So he is a concern.
And also Jason Terry is -- he's flying under the radar right now but he's always dangerous. We'll have to watch him, definitely.
Q. Mike, you said it's how you play that controls the game. Do you think there's any major changes you need to make or any adjustments or just executing better than you did in Game 2?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Executing better. Making shots. Runs just as hard. I don't think so. You know, their defense got a little bit better, I think, but so did ours. We held them 13 less than they had last time. So anybody wants stats, we can throw that out there. We got a lot better defensively.
Q. Mike, can you give us an update on Raja and just talk some about just, you know, do you ever feel that there might come the point where you don't have enough to make up for the loss of players? You've been doing it all year, but --
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: We come to that point when we go fishing, I guess, as they say. But we're not dealing with that right now. We think that Leandro will fill in great and so will James and Eddie. I think we're okay. Raja feels better today than he did yesterday. And should continue that way. He's not ready to go today. He'll continue to be day-to-day and hopefully Tuesday it will be -- I think it will be hard but as soon as he's ready he's going to get out there. And he'll do everything he can to get ready. So it's just a matter of time.
Q. How much as it gets later in the playoffs at this point, or beyond -- we always talk about home court advantage and players say we've played this whole season to get this. How much does it really matter at this point when the teams are at this level and the teams are pretty much even in talent?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: I think it's a lot less than what most people think. I think it's hard to -- you know, the NBA, it's always been hard to beat teams back to back, especially good teams. So that's why a lot of times you split on the road. You split at home and five, six and seven. It's tough to beat teams two times in a row. And so it leads to it, now it's going to be tough to beat them at home two times.
If you had to choose you'd rather play at home just so guys sleep in their own beds and they're more comfortable. Crowd is great. But we feel and I'm sure they feel the same way you can win on any court. Referees are great both ways. They're going to call it the same. It doesn't influence anybody anymore. So I just think you have a little bit of a comfort level at home, but in the overall scheme of things, I don't know how much it helps. Maybe Game 7s, stuff like that, when it's like same pressure on both teams and going down. But other than that it's pretty much a toss up.
Q. You always talk about the sticking with what your team does and playing your way no matter what anybody does and adjustments. And so far in this series Dallas has done a lot of different things. They've guarded outside. They've played big guys. They played different big guys back and forth. Do you think they're trying to adjust to what you do, or trying to experiment with what you do, or do you have any -- I don't expect you to know their strategies, but --
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: I think they're trying to find out what worked. I think they think that now with Diop kind of hanging in the lane a little bit that worked. If you're there, that's kind of what you're thinking, I would think. They're not going to go away from it until we solve that. It's almost like during a game you put a matchup that, oh, this is working, so when a game ends, the next game, then that's what you're going to go with.
Until they prove you can't do it. So we gotta prove that that's not really the reason that, you know, our production fell off.
Q. You made your shots --
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: See, to me that's not the reason why we fell off and he'll stay back in there. And, guess what, until we prove -- we have to prove it. I can think what I want to until we solve that problem then they'll continue to do that, I would imagine.

End of FastScripts...

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