|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v MAVERICKSMay 25, 2006Dirk NowitzkiDALLAS, TEXAS: Practice Day Q. How long was the film watching session? DIRK NOWITZKI: About an hour. Q. How do you rank your defensive performance last game? DIRK NOWITZKI: It wasn't really a defensive effort. I mean they got whatever they wanted. They got like 100 points in transition. They got layups. They got whatever they wanted. So defense was very nonexistent. But saying all that, I think our offense was good enough still to win it. Just made a couple mistakes down the stretch defensively and offensively. And then we gotta adjust and we'll see from there. Q. (Inaudible) how do you talk about defending the run outs, when you make a basket and they're going right back over your head? DIRK NOWITZKI: We just gotta get used to it. I think the first two series we played were completely different, and you know you can talk about all you want in a meeting and on the court but something different to adjust during the game. And I think in the first quarter they got us a couple times. After that I think we adjusted a little better but still there, a lot of layups and transition that we gotta take away. And against this team, we just gotta get it in our heads you can never relax no matter what happens, if it's a foul made, basket, a miss, whenever you're on the court we gotta get back and force them to a half court game. They have a lot of weapons in half-court game but if we take transition away we should be in much better shape. Q. Do they pick-and-roll you better than you thought they would without not having Stoudemire? DIRK NOWITZKI: That's their game, really. In a set offense. That's really all they do. A high screen roll. A high screen roll and Steve making plays off that. He's the best at that, making stuff happen for him and his teammates and you gotta give him credit. A lot of shooters and down the stretch to win the game. Q. When you talk about you guys going forward, you're playing (inaudible) -- DIRK NOWITZKI: Well, it's tough to play center against these guys. They cross match. We try to run back and go to our man Thomas a couple threes early. And (inaudible) and (inaudible) and if he's going to play in the series they gotta know cross match you gotta find shooters and transition. You don't run against the basket against this team, you have to find transition and find shooters. And it's tough for big men to play in this game, but I'm sure we'll find something here and there and we gotta be productive. Q. Will you give up some offensive rebounds and you need to get back? DIRK NOWITZKI: Yeah, obviously one or two guys going to the glass, but we can't have guys standing in the corners and watch the shots and admiring their shots. It's not the series to do it. You gotta find a way to go, sprint back, pick whoever guy is in your area even if it's not your match that we want. But just get back and then roll, we'll go from there. Q. Dirk, did you find other people on the team doing that, admiring their shots? DIRK NOWITZKI: We didn't get back as a team, it was obvious. Like I said, we gotta reprogram our minds and I think we watched enough on the film that we all made mistakes in transition and we just gotta get better at it. Q. Dirk, how many times did you -- had a lot of second chance points, great rebound game. What did you think of that? DIRK NOWITZKI: Obviously with their small line, they're little -- you can go on the glass. You can go inside a little bit. So I didn't think it was effective as I wanted to be. I didn't really have a great game and obviously defensively we weren't great. So offensively we scored enough points to win but we got to find a way to slow them down.
End of FastScripts... |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|