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NBA FINALS: LAKERS v CELTICSJune 7, 2008Luke WaltonBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day Q. Have you learned anything more about your offense during the playoffs? LUKE WALTON: No, we do the same things every day from day one in training camp. We haven't put anything new in. Q. None of the little playoff bag of tricks? LUKE WALTON: No, they save some stuff for the playoffs, but it's stuff that we put in before. It's stuff that we don't really use much during the regular season, but we save it for the playoffs, but it's nothing new. Q. Sometimes you learn things in the execution of stuff, and those tricks you guys are really kind of learning to execute here; am I wrong about that? LUKE WALTON: No, you're right, but it kind of goes series to series, depending on the way teams defend you, and our whole offense is about reading the defense and making the right plays. As the series goes on, it's players making adjustments and being able to predict what the defense is going to do, which makes our offense seems like it's changing, but it's the same offense, it's just making different reads. Q. In Game 1 it was obvious this team has really scouted you guys. Kobe wasn't able to get many decent shots in the second half. LUKE WALTON: He had to fight for it in San Antonio. Bruce Bowen always does a good job of contesting shots. But this is a great defensive team, and we had success early on them in the first half, and then we kind of got away from what was working for us. They're a team that's going to contest shots and make us earn points, and we either accept taking difficult shots or we've got to execute the offense better and get easy shots. Q. You're going to have to hit some jump shots to beat them, aren't you, this team? LUKE WALTON: Absolutely. They do a great job of clogging up the lane and not letting you get lay-ups. But if you swing the ball you can get open looks from the weak side, and we have to do a great job of knocking that down. Q. They held you guys to a playoff low, 88 points. Was that due to good defense or was that missing open looks? LUKE WALTON: Both. We had some shots that normally drop for us that were rimming out. I mean, obviously you've got to give their defense a lot of credit. We have a lot of talent on this team and we've been scoring an average of 100 points a game in the playoffs. So you've definitely got to give them credit, and hopefully we'll make some of those shots we missed last game. Q. You guys seem to struggle in the first road game of each series. Is that just not being comfortable in your surroundings, taking a while to get acclimated? LUKE WALTON: No, we've played some pretty tough teams. You know, even Denver, who we beat in four, they're a great home team, Utah was the best home record in the league, San Antonio was the defending champions, and now we're playing the Celtics who have the best record in the league. There's a reason all those teams are that good, and they've done a good job. But we've done a good job as a team of making adjustments and figuring out different ways to score and getting wins from those teams, so now we've got to do that against Boston. End of FastScripts |
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