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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: NUGGETS v LAKERS

May 24, 2009

George Karl

DENVER, COLORADO: Practice Day

Q. Do you feel more optimistic, a lot better after what transpired here?
COACH KARL: I mean, I think we're disappointed in not kind of holding serve. But we did a lot of good things last night. Having a chance to win a playoff game shooting 38 percent, 39 percent, yeah. I feel we can take what we did last night and be better for us tomorrow. It's a game of energy and commitment tomorrow.
My team has been fantastic in those challenges all season long. And I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a special evening for NBA basketball, especially Denver Nugget basketball.

Q. What are some of the optimistic things you saw?
COACH KARL: I think defensively, except for maybe 10, eight to 10 cheap possessions, we were really good. I think we're understanding what they're trying to do better. And offensively I don't know if we can play any worse.
The foul trouble, the flow of the game, the rhythm of the game got away from us as the game went on, and the closer closed. And every game has had kind of a similar personality. The little things, our mental competitive maturity. We went below the line with the technicals. Also some fouling came because of that frustration. And I think we can clean up pretty easy.

Q. The 3-pointers, five of 27. Was a lot of that Lakers defense?
COACH KARL: I think we got caught up in the emotion of the moment of a great crowd, a great challenge, and I think we tried to shoot too many. Tried to hit too many home runs rather than take a single or a double here, win the game that way. I think we were trying to hit too many home runs.

Q. Does your team now know they need to play to the rim rather than to the crowd?
COACH KARL: I think playing to the opponent is -- we've got to challenge the Lakers to play defense on every possession. I think we took too many shots so that they didn't have to play defense. We just played bad offense.

Q. There weren't a lot of signs in the fourth quarter. Is that a consolation for you guys? Is that a credit to what you guys are out there to do defensively, for Chauncey and Carmelo?
COACH KARL: Well, I'm hoping, and I don't know for sure, but they've been playing every day for a long time. And it seemed like we have the longer bench. We have hopefully maybe more energy. But that doesn't matter until we win tomorrow night.
If we win tomorrow night, I think we can discuss it a little bit more. But I think 2-2 is where we want to be. Did we want to be 3-1? Hell, yeah. But I don't think we were thinking that was always going to happen. We opened up that opportunity and the Lakers took it back. It's called playoff basketball.
I think both teams are playing in a very competitive way. And if you don't have a scoreboard, just watched all three games, I don't know if you would have picked who would win the game.
If you didn't have a scoreboard, took all three games and put them out there and say who won, I don't know, I think most people -- it would be a toss-up. People would say I think Denver played better. If you saw it again, what I'm saying don't put a scoreboard on, just watch the games, I think you would think we were a better team.

Q. What was the difference as far as Carmelo started there in the first quarter compared to --
COACH KARL: Hey, do you want to take this one?

Q. -- compared to the second half?
COACH KARL: I think when I talked to Melo this morning, seemed like there was a foul frustration to the flow. And sometimes being out of the flow comes foul problems. And he had a little bit of it in the second quarter. And then in the first, four-minute mark or four-minute mark or third.
And I don't think Melo had a bad offensive game. He just didn't make his 3-ball. He probably didn't get the offensive rebounds he got in Game 2. And he probably didn't get in the flow.
Again, if he gets a 1 or 2, of all them, he has one of those 30-point games again. I just think that's NBA. They're very focused in on his touches. And he's just got to learn, experiment, experience the challenge.

Q. At the end, five straight 30-point games, average 35 points a game during the stretch, how hard is that to do in playoff basketball?
COACH KARL: That's incredible pretty much. I said before the game, if last night's game was the bad game, I think we're in pretty good shape. Bad games you usually don't get 20 some points and don't shoot the ball that good.
Most of the shots were 3 balls. And they were 4-for-7 or 3-for-7 from the 2, and I think 1-for-6 from the 3. But got another seven or eight shots, got fouled and stuff -- I think the foul trouble probably took three or four or five shots away from him.

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