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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURS

June 9, 2007

LeBron James

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day

Q. How many times have you watched a game tape over the past few days and do you feel you have a pretty good sense of what the Spurs are trying to do against you defensively?
LEBRON JAMES: I watched it twice, same answer as yesterday. I don't want to dwell on it. I don't want to put too much inside my thinking process on what I'm going to do to attack their defense.

Q. Robert Horry said that he thinks you're rope-a-doping them a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about how your approach or mindset changes from Game 1 to 2 to 3 as the series progresses? It seems like something changes with you. Take us through that process that you go through.
LEBRON JAMES: It's just mentally and just trying to read the defense as much as possible and just try to be better the next game. I've done a great job of preparing myself from one game to another, and I definitely feel like it's going to be a bounce-back game for me tomorrow night.

Q. Tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. do you think America is going to be more interested in Tony Parker or Tony Soprano?
LEBRON JAMES: (Laughing) that's a great question. I did have my girlfriend TiVo(r) the Sopranos definitely so when I get home I'll be able to watch it. But I think I'll be more focused on Tony Parker, even though I am a fan of Tony Soprano.

Q. And ultimately what do you think is going to happen to Tony Soprano?
LEBRON JAMES: Me and my guys have definitely sat down and think about it. My friends think that either the Feds are going to come and get him or he's going to make friends with the Feds and maybe snitch on a lot of people, or he's going to be whacked, which I don't think is going to happen. I hope that he's just able to get away and not worry about nothing (laughter).

Q. Thank you.
LEBRON JAMES: I'm serious, I'm a big Sopranos fan, and this is the first time I finally got a question which is not the same question I've been hearing all year. I appreciate that. That was awesome because I told you I'm pretty tired of answering the same questions, so I appreciate it.

Q. I don't think he'll get whacked, either.
LEBRON JAMES: I hope not.

Q. Bruce Bowen's wife had a baby, I think, overnight. Do you think that that gives you a little bit of an edge going into the game?
LEBRON JAMES: No, absolutely not. Congratulations. I didn't know that. Congratulations to him and his family. That's awesome. I'm expecting any day. Well, I'm not (laughter). That would be kind of weird, but Savannah is expecting any day. I think it's a great time for his family, and it's not going to take away from nothing that he does on the basketball court.

Q. Are you going to maybe induce labor to have it on an off day?
LEBRON JAMES: No, we're just going to -- she's going to just play it by ear. Whatever happens, happens. We're very excited about it, and we can't wait.

Q. What do you think you can do to get your teammates some better shots and what can they do to help you out?
LEBRON JAMES: Just like I said in the last series, I think they're very good when you allow them to set up in the half court defensively, and that's the same with Detroit. Just try to get up and down the court a little bit quicker and try to get some earlier looks on the shot clock where they're not set as much. Try and make the easy pass, don't go for the hard pass. They're very good at shrinking the floor and closing out some of my shooters. We have to do a better job of dribble penetrating, getting to the lane and then kicking out instead of just making the hard pass from one side of the court to the other side.

Q. Coach talked a couple days ago about mental mistakes. He said that was the biggest thing you guys did. What are some of the mental mistakes you guys feel you can fix going into this?
LEBRON JAMES: Offensively and defensively we're a lot better. We did play pretty good defense, but offensively were weren't sharp at all. I wasn't sharp offensively, and that trickles down to the rest of our team. If I'm not sharp then it's going to be very tough for us to win ball games. Mentally we had a great practice yesterday and we're looking forward to having another one today.

Q. I hope this is a question you haven't answered before, too. In terms of your shooting, do you think you have a tendency to fade to your left, which flattens your trajectory? Do you have a tendency to do that? And with your physical jumping ability, why don't you like go up straight more, just straight in front of the defensive guy and shoot it right in his eye because you can jump over anybody?
LEBRON JAMES: Are you a shooting coach?

Q. As a hobby --
LEBRON JAMES: I'm looking for one (laughter). I've been told that before. It's just sometimes it's natural for me to fade. You know, I think a lot of my shots go in when I fade, a lot of them go in when I jump straight up, so it's something I'm definitely going to work on and get better with. But trajectory and all that stuff, I don't know.

Q. In the interest of putting yourself in the other person's shoes, if LeBron the journalist was sitting out here, what would he ask LeBron the player in this situation that would elicit an answer we haven't heard before?
LEBRON JAMES: I don't know (smiling). I just think --

Q. Not so easy, is it?
LEBRON JAMES: It's not easy at all. That's why I'm not sitting out there, I guess.

Q. You got to know Bowen a little bit during the summer, and he's got this reputation as being kind of a dirty player but he does all kinds of community service. What did you learn about Bruce? What kind of guy is he?
LEBRON JAMES: He's definitely a team-oriented guy, and he communicates well with his teammates, and that's off the court. You know, it's definitely family first with him and basketball second, and any time you get an opportunity to sit down with a guy like that -- you know, we have a guy like that on our team, Eric Snow, who really cares about everything else besides basketball because basketball is going to take care of itself. You really respect a guy like that who really respects your family and things that you do off the court, community service, things like that and things besides basketball. I think that means a lot to a person like me, and I really respect Bruce and Eric being open like that.

Q. You've faced double-teams before, but going into Game 2 knowing that you're going to face double and triple-teams, how is that going to change your approach to the way you do things offensively going into this game?
LEBRON JAMES: Well, you definitely look at it and see how you can attack it a little bit better. But it's not going to make me that much more passive. I've definitely faced double-teams and triple-teams throughout this postseason, so I have to do a better job of trying to attack the double-team early and see if I can swing it to the other side to a teammate that can make a play, also.
We got into too many late shot clocks in Game 1, which is not good for us. We don't work well when we get into the shot clock down at 3 and 2 on the clock, and it makes us make bad plays. We just have to do a better job of trying to attack the double-team and being a little bit more aggressive getting to the lane.

Q. Since you gave us such a good answer on the Sopranos, what was the last movie you saw and give us a quick critique of it?
LEBRON JAMES: The last movie I saw was -- what was it? I don't remember. Spiderman III was the last movie I seen. It was a little bit too romantic, but it was very good. It was very long, but it was a little bit too romantic for me, I guess.

Q. Are you more like the black Spiderman?
LEBRON JAMES: I liked the black Spiderman. He was very funny. He couldn't dance at all, but he was very funny.

End of FastScripts

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