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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS v PISTONSMay 25, 2007LeBron JamesCLEVELAND, OHIO: Practice Day LEBRON JAMES: I seen Coach's reaction after the play. You seen me and the referee talk about what happened during the course of that play. I've just got to move on. I can't do nothing more than just try to be aggressive when I play. I made contact. I mean, things happen like that, I guess. Q. Did you expect a whistle on the first contact when he first got you on the drive? LEBRON JAMES: Well, I thought so. You're not allowed to use your hands on the perimeter once a guy starts penetrating towards the basket. There was a lot of physical contact throughout the course of the game, so I don't want to look back at just that one play, but it could have made a difference. Q. Would you have done anything differently at the end of the game? LEBRON JAMES: Absolutely not. I wanted to be aggressive, and I was able to do that and I was able to create some contact. Q. Were you going to do the spin move? Did the early contact kind of take that out of play? LEBRON JAMES: Well, no, I found that he was right on one side of my move, so I was able to spin, and once I went up to my shot, I felt some more contact. But I guess -- you call this playoff basketball, I do the best I can do and hopefully we get some respect at some point. Q. Were you feeling like you wanted to be more aggressive in this game since Game 1 you made the pass, this time you took it yourself? LEBRON JAMES: No, I still made some passes throughout the course of the ballgame. I made one that was called for a turnover that wasn't a turnover on Sasha. We had an open look and he was able to pass the ball before it landed. But I try to take what's there. You don't want to try to force anything because they're a very good defensive team. We fell short again. Q. What's going on in the third quarter? Why is it you guys have just been flat -- LEBRON JAMES: I don't know, I can't put a finger on it right now. If we could, we'd be able to fix it. We can't put our finger on it right now, but it has to get better and soon, or we're not going to be in the best position possible in this series. We have to try our best, try to fix it and come out in the third quarter with a little bit more focus, try to attack their pressure because they come out with a lot of aggressiveness on the defensive end and just try to get better. We have to do it now. We can't wait until Game 4. We have to do it now. We have to get better at it. Q. What is going on in the third quarter? Is it just slow? LEBRON JAMES: We're starting off with too many jump shots. We're having a lead, we feel like we can continue to shoot jump shots and then they get on the other end and they get fouls or they get dunks or they get lay-ups. They do a better job of trying to go inside, trying to get some contact, trying to get early in the penalty in the third quarter. I have to do a better job of that, also, and my team has to do a better job of reacting to what's going on in the third. Q. People like to talk about good leaders should be able to push their teams to do more, is there anything more that you personally can do for this team? LEBRON JAMES: Yeah, I have to, or we're not going to win this series, simple as that. I'm the leader of this team and I have to do more on the defensive end and offensive end. For us to win ballgames, we have to make better decisions down the stretch and eliminate some of the mistakes that I make throughout the course of the ballgame. It is some room for improvement with us, and we have time. Have to win four out of five. It's not impossible, but we have to do it now. Q. Are there any other resources besides watching the film and practicing as a team regularly that you're going to do on your own? LEBRON JAMES: I don't know, you just have to wing it. You just have to see during the course of the ballgame what's there for you as an individual, what's there for your team, what's the best fit, and we have to go with it. At a point if we have something that's very comfortable to us, we have to stick with it. Everyone just has to continue to play hard, which we've done the first two games but we haven't played hard enough to win. Q. Can you just also talk about the defense that Rasheed Wallace is playing on you. LEBRON JAMES: He's playing great. I think we didn't know how well of a shot blocker he was until this series, and he's definitely playing great, using his length. He's definitely done a good job on the offensive end, too. He's definitely one of the best power forwards in this league. His numbers don't speak for it, but everyone knows how well of a player he is. Q. When is the last time there was this much second-guessing about you? We've heard a little in the regular season about the last-minute shots, but it's like a debate now. LEBRON JAMES: Because I'm still in the playoffs, I guess. You wouldn't talk about it if I was at home, you know? You have to have something to talk about. I make the decisions and I live with them. You know, my teammates respect the decisions that I make and I've always come through for them, if it's either late or early in the game. It doesn't bother me at all. Q. Do you kind of laugh at the "should have been shooting the ball," "should have been passing"? LEBRON JAMES: Definitely. You shut all that up by trying to win ballgames. You win and they have nothing to talk about. Q. Was there any thought of attacking earlier on that last possession? LEBRON JAMES: No, I wanted to -- when I decided to attack I wanted -- the best thing I wanted to do was, hey, if I get the ball to the rim, just give us another opportunity to get a look at it, and we did. Larry got a great look and Andy got a great tip at it. So I started to attack, I seen him start to shift and I backed up a little bit more and I started to attack again and created some contact and created some more contact and we was able to get another look at it. You live with it. Q. Do you chalk both of these games up as lessons for you and this team? LEBRON JAMES: I think it's all about paying dues right now, you know, earning respect. You look at it, you can say, hey, these guys have been in the Conference Finals five years in a row. This is our first time in a long time. Right now it seems like it's about paying our dues and earning respect to everybody. Q. Did Wade get calls because he and Shaq had never been in The Finals before? That was their first time to get that far, that group. LEBRON JAMES: I'm not sure. Q. Talk about the challenge of being down two games. LEBRON JAMES: It's a challenge, but it's nothing we haven't been part of before. We was down 2-0 to these guys last year, even though last year is not this year, but we've been in this situation. It's always good to be in certain situations. We've been up 2-0, we've been down 2-0, so we have to see how we react. Our fans are great and hopefully they'll do a great job of supporting us on Sunday. Q. Is it easier to double-team when they're kind of in the floating zone because they don't have to get back to a guy under the rules? LEBRON JAMES: I think it is. You know, you just don't care about where your man is, they can just kind of react to letting the pass go and kind of react to it. They have a great defensive strategy. Those guys are doing a great job of just trying to make me do some things that's out of my comfort zone. Q. You're kind of the last superstar in the postseason. I don't know if that kind of hit you when you guys started this Conference Finals. Mostly it's teams that are left. Does that kind of say something to you as far as where you have to get to? LEBRON JAMES: It says that I'm just not a one-man show. That's what it says to me. I have a great team, and out of 30 teams we're still here. You know, no one ever looks at that, they just look at, hey, we had an easy run, we played a team in Washington that was depleted and we played a team in New Jersey that had no inside presence, but it's never the Cavs won these ballgames. It's never that. Whenever anybody else wins, they did a great job of executing, they did a great job of winning ballgames down the stretch. But when we win it's like the other team was depleted or they didn't do a great job of making things happen. It's just we have to earn respect. I don't know how we do that, but I guess you do it by winning, and we've done nothing but win in this postseason. Q. I'm sure you were chomping at the bit last night to say something, why not, to kind of get your team going? LEBRON JAMES: We don't want to make excuses. We've been a no-excuse team all year. Everyone knows how we felt throughout the course of that game, but we got an opportunity to really calm down and prepare ourselves for Game 3. It was definitely a situation where maybe things could have got out of hand on that podium with me up there last night and with Coach, also. You guys could see it in our guys that we maybe wanted to say something, but it's not about that. You have to just learn from what happened and maybe try to execute a little bit better the next time. End of FastScripts |
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