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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v LAKERS

May 25, 2010

Alvin Gentry

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Four

Suns Â– 115
Lakers - 106

COACH GENTRY: All right. What do you want to know?

Q. Can you talk about -- was that about as consistent a performance of the bench as you can get?
COACH GENTRY: Yeah, but I'll tell you guys, they've been good for us. They really have. That's why I said that you know we believe in our bench. And although they weren't scoring, I thought they played well.
You know, the thing that kind of hurt the most is that they've been coming into the games where we're down 9, down 11, and they play pretty good. But it was an uphill battle for them. So tonight when they came in, you know, tie score. I thought they played about as well as they could play.
I thought they were much better defensively than they were offensively, and I thought they were great offensively. We just did a good job. I think the thing about us is that we're a good team.
And on nights where they take things away from us, we're unselfish enough that we'll try to take what the defense gives us. And, you know, Amar'e didn't get a whole lot of touches. When he got touches, they were in. And he was willing to sacrifice his game to get guys open shots.

Q. It's like a two-point game the beginning of the fourth quarter, and you've got your bench in. They've got their bench plus Kobe. How long were you going with your bench?
COACH GENTRY: Well, you know, we've done it before. And you know, we're going to go as long as we possibly can go. We like to try to get to the seven-minute mark, then we put Steve and those guys back in. To tell you the truth, they were going so well -- we've done it before where we hadn't put the starters back in.
And really I think Steve went back in with a little over three minutes to go, and, you know, J-Rich went in with about two and a half or something or three minutes to go. But we believe in those guys.
And they really believe in themselves, and they're a really cohesive unit. And they just do a good job of playing well together.

Q. What were you guys doing to keep Kobe from getting a lot of shots in the fourth quarter?
COACH GENTRY: 38? Fourth quarter? The only thing we said to our guys was he was in such a rhythm, even in our zone, we said you'll have to get right up into him, make him a driver. Then if he drives, then we've got to make sure we don't foul him on jump shots. And we thought that if we give up two to really have an opportunity to maybe get three or get another easy basket, that's what we'd try to do.
I mean, the guy made some phenomenal shots. Lou guarded him three straight times where he was right in his face. He rose over him and made jumpers. There's nothing you can do about that.

Q. Eleven 3s for you guys tonight, Channing with four. How happy were you to see that first one go through? Looked at one point you were going to sell him out, but then Robin didn't get in in time and he hit a couple and you sat Robin back down.
COACH GENTRY: We've done that before, too, and Robin turned and said, I should come back, because he made a couple of shots. And that's the other thing about this team. I'll tell you guys, they're so unselfish. They're so unselfish in what we do.
And if a guy is going well -- it's like J-Rich. J-Rich sat over there, L.B. made a couple of plays and I started to put him in. He said, he's going great, let's leave him in.
I think that's another reason why we've been successful as a team. It's really different than most NBA teams. We're really more like a college team, to be honest with you, the way guys are. But like I said, I think we got great chemistry and that really helps.

Q. You just talked about the zone tonight and how you used it and the effectiveness of it after they've seen it once.
COACH GENTRY: The only thing that we tried to do is that we tried to look at the tape, and we tried to look at it as if we were the Lakers. And we said, okay, where would you attack us? And we saw some areas where we thought we were real vulnerable in those areas.
And so we talked to our guys about being well aware of that. One of them was the high screen and roll with Kobe. We thought we would have to get up and at least make him a driver, not have him come off and just rise up and shoot the ball.
We also thought that they would try to pound the ball inside a lot more. So we were going to have to be inside and then close out the shooters. And I thought we did a good job with that.

Q. You seemed to have it work, even though it's a zone you seem to be matching up well with the big guys?
COACH GENTRY: I think that's the whole key right there. Although it's a zone, we really try to match up. Initially everyone has to have a man. And then from there, you know, we tried to pass guys off and we tried to stay in our zone.
I thought our guys did a good job tonight of communicating. And then a couple of times we let guys get behind us. But for the most part, you know, early on, once again, guys, they were making jump shots. And I think we have to live with the jump shots.
At the end of the night, they still had 42 points in the paint. But a lot of those came -- you know, near the end of the game where they drove and we decided to stay with the 3-point shooters and give up a basket in the lane rather than a 3-point shot.

Q. Bynum played much better this game and gave you guys a lot of problems. Inside, do you -- in terms of your planning for the next go-around, how do you assess what he did to you and what --
COACH GENTRY: He played great. The guy's an unbelievably long guy. They missed shots and we tried to box him out. And he would reach over the top of us and just make baskets. There's not a whole lot we can do about that. We understand that. We've got to try to get a body on him and box him out. But for the most part when he's out there we try to take advantage in situations put him in screen and rolls.

End of FastScripts

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