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NBA FINALS: LAKERS v CELTICS

June 5, 2008

Ray Allen

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Game One

Q. Talk about your defensive philosophy when you were assigned to cover Kobe.
RAY ALLEN: Kobe and I have a lot of history. I played against him many years. We've always gone at it.
I think tonight I knew he was going to attack me and I wanted to try to make sure that I just tried to stay in front of him, not foul him, put him on the foul line, and just stay solid. He's going to take shots, he's going to make shots, so we just want to keep a swarm around him and just giving him the easy buckets was something we didn't want to do.

Q. What was your mentality when Paul went out tonight? Seemed like you were one of the guys that helped bridge the gap there between when he went out and came back, kind of showed you guys can cover for you when you've had an injury throughout the season.
RAY ALLEN: Yeah, we've covered for each other pretty well. I think the way we've come together as a team throughout the course of this year, we've allowed, whether it's myself coming out of the game and Tony Allen coming in or Paul going out and James Posey going in and Sam going in, everybody on the bench can do the job of the guys on the floor. At any point that I come out of the game, I have confidence in the guy that's coming in that he can do the job just as well.
When Paul went down, we just said, this is that moment of adversity where we have to suck it up and we have to figure it out. We just wanted to make sure that we continued to attack. It wasn't going to change in our mind because Paul wasn't there. James came in and we just still wanted to make sure that we attacked and we got good shots.

Q. You defended Kobe Bryant, the main guy defending him in the two regular season games, and tonight he had a bad shooting game, all three games. Is this a point of pride for you?
RAY ALLEN: We won the game; that's my point of pride. He's the biggest catalyst for us defensively for us to make sure that we cover every base on the defensive end. You just can't rest with him. You can't go out there and think that he's resting and he's going to pop, he's going to flash to the ball and get a shot off, and he's going to cause you to be out of defensive position.
It's a great feeling to know that as a team we have pretty good concepts, team defense-wise, we went out there and did a job on him where we made him a little bit more uncomfortable than he would have liked otherwise.

Q. Just building on what you said earlier, what was the lift you guys got when Paul came back to the court?
RAY ALLEN: I was surprised. The way he was carried off, it seemed like he was done for the game, and then he came running back on the floor, and it was a great feeling for me, and just for me thinking about him because I didn't want -- any time anybody gets hurt at any point, whether they're on your team or on the other team, you just hate to see somebody go out through injury. I was just glad for him that he was fine and that he picked it up. He came back in and he played well, so it was obvious whatever he did, it wore off, and you know how that can be something real small. He might feel it later on tonight or in the morning, but for the time being your adrenaline was pumping so he was ready to go.

Q. In the first half they had 14 assists out of their 19 baskets. What did you guys do in the second half to button that down?
RAY ALLEN: There were a couple of miscues that we had underneath the basket. We talked about it at halftime, and we just made sure that we were more aware of their back cuts and their big guys flashing under the basket and kind of pushing further away. It took them a little bit more out of their comfort zone, I think.

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