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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v MAVERICKS

May 29, 2006

Mike D'Antoni

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Practice Day

COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: We didn't run. We weren't as sharp as we should have been.
Q. What about Bell's (inaudible)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Bell is still a little bit away. But he's getting better every day, but not quite there yet.
Q. What about (inaudible)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Kurt's there. I mean it goes back to, you know, defensively we were really good last night. So I think offensively if we've got the best team on the court, we just gotta (inaudible).
Q. (Diop's job on Boris)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Diop is good. He moves his feet. He's long. There's other things we need to do. We don't need to challenge him at the rim which I know we did.
We challenged a lot of games, not just him. But we were a little hard-headed going to the basket too much. And we need to make that extra pass, kick it out, get twos and threes and get running a little bit more and we didn't have any steals last night, which is kind of odd for us.
Kept us running, and loose rebound, long rebound that kept us wanting to use the long rebound that you run out on. We didn't do those things and at the end again, four points with a minute and a half to go, or whatever, we didn't make the big plays and we didn't come up with big plays during the game.
I thought we lost the game in the first half and we were up 11 and we had a lay-up and didn't make some shots. Silly fouls. Put them on the line. And then we're down to five and should have won by a ten-point lead.
Just little things like that loses your games. And we'll come out next game we'll take care of that. We feel confident.
Q. (On losing Game 3)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: It's always tough to lose. But, you know, you have to understand that this is our team, it's going to take some work. We're not going to come down and knock them out. And I told someone after Game 1, I was sitting over on the sidelines and everybody knew that by Game 3 I'm going to be over there (inaudible) just up and down and up and down, going to be that way.
Again, we need to know it's a must-win game situation Tuesday night. We win that, it's a two out of three series. They have home court, we show them we can win there. We'll win there and every game (inaudible) pretty good.
Q. Any notion that these guys are tired?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Our guys?
Q. Yeah.
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Not really. They could be mentally or whatever. But, you know, somebody made the observation that, you know, there's a lot of players in the league that do not get this hot ever in a career. Been here two years in a row.
A lot of guys, this is their first time. A lot of guys, it's their last time. You don't take it for granted that you're here. Jerry told the -- story back in '76 when he got to the Finals we'll be here a lot. 18 years, something like that. You can take it for granted. (Inaudible) into the equation, you can't afford it. And I don't think anybody should be tired, and they won't be.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: I don't think it's a risk. You know, I don't know how Kurt is, I think where everybody is condition-wise and playing-wise, we're playing the best guys on the court. I've gotta go with that. Until I see definitely -- until Boris starts playing bad or Tim Thomas starts playing bad or our guys look physically fatigued, then we might shake something up.
I don't know how you just shake it up, a part that's been working, just because you lose. And we lost because of things that may be in other areas we didn't do well in. I don't know.
I'm happy with the way the team is. And if it's a bad decision, I don't know. I don't think it is and I think I would do it again and I'm going to stay with it until proven otherwise.
Q. Would it be different --
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: Yeah, again, I just don't think we played well. And we've given ourselves shots to win and we've been up at half time every game and, you know, we have to learn how to close the game down. We haven't done that.
Q. Would it be different for Kurt if defense was a issue?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: If we're dunking out there, running wild, he'd be playing already. If there was Elton Brand out there running he would be playing. That's his thing. That's why he's in there. That's why we need him. With Van Horn or Diop, guys they don't go to, I don't know that that's our best advantage.
Now, if he had been playing the whole time, yeah, because offensively he's in the schemes, he's in the flow. He's got his shot. I don't know if that shot will be there after two years, after his legs, after two months. I don't know that. I just don't know if we can afford to find out.
Q. (Inaudible) points, and steals, you don't think the team is visibly fatigued?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: No, I don't. I think we just didn't get it done. We don't believe in that. We could have said that in different games in the series against the Lakers. Different games. I don't think we are. You can ask (inaudible) didn't say that. I don't think we really are.
Q. (On the team being fatigued)?
COACH MIKE D'ANTONI: I don't think so. A lot of people go seven, maybe eight guys. You know, we get Raja back, there's not too many guys have nine or ten guys. We have seven. 38, play 38 all his life. We have other guys at 40 minutes. They need to do that. Josh Howard, he only played (inaudible) and so to me it's the same.
You know, it's gotta be the same for everybody. We have a short rotation. That just means our seventh guy is playing about 38 minutes. That's LB, that's our fifth guy. But James is playing time. We can get Eddie up a little bit more but having a hard time with him and Steve on the court at the same time.
But I just think our guys are okay. I don't think it's fatigue.

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