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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v LAKERS

May 26, 2010

Alvin Gentry

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. You were supposed to be planning your summer vacation right now, right?
COACH GENTRY: Yeah, I'm going to miss my kid's graduation from elementary to junior high school.

Q. Tonight?
COACH GENTRY: Tomorrow night, yeah. And the school countdown, which is -- well, no, it's Friday, so I'll make that one.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH GENTRY: All right, we'll do that one then.

Q. When we came here a couple days ago, it was like dead Suns walking.
COACH GENTRY: Not for us it wasn't. For everybody else it was. You know, I mean, our guys still had confidence. We were playing at home, and we thought that we had to win one game, as I told you guys. We had to try to win Game 3. And if we won Game 3, then we would concentrate on the other game.
But, you know, we didn't think we played well out there, and we thought they played exceptionally well. They shot the ball well, and our defense wasn't very good. We tried to do a couple of things. Me being the smart coach that I am decided to change a couple of things and tried to do something a little bit differently. That definitely didn't work out. That's more on me than it is on the guys, I think.
We kind of went back to who we are and tried to figure out a way that we could best defend them to the point where we could -- as I said to the guys, we just needed to get them down to the half court so we could have more opportunities to run. And the guys did a good job with that.

Q. You said you didn't expect to be able to play zone D the entire second half?
COACH GENTRY: I lie a lot.

Q. Basically, were you planning that?
COACH GENTRY: We were going to play it as long as it was effective. You've got to understand one thing, guys. The shots that Kobe was making, you know, the only thing that we could have done to combat that is we could have played a box and one. But we could have played the box on him and the one in the zone, you know.
We've got four guys guarding him and one in the zone. The shots that he made, we couldn't do anything about. We went back and looked at tape again today. He made five out of the six jumpshots he made in the second quarter, there is nobody in the NBA that could have defended him. So we kept telling our guys to just hang in, you know. That's who he is. You've got to understand that. That's who he is.
But they were coming from the perimeter. The other thing is that when they are perimeter shots and you have a tendency not to get in foul trouble, and we also keep them off the foul line, which is a big thing for us too.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH GENTRY: We've just got to approach the game with the same attitude that we did the last two. As I said, I think Portland and Golden State has the best crowds in the league, but they still have to make the basketball. So our approach has to be regardless what the situation is with the crowd, we have to go out and approach the game as we did the last two. We have to create our own energy levels.

Q. How loose are the guys now?
COACH GENTRY: I tell you guys, our guys have been loose. We came in and shot half-court shots the day we got back. We had a great practice, and the white team goes after the black team, and every time they score a basket, you know, there's a lot of trash talking and stuff that goes on. That's kind of who we are.
We never -- if you're asking me have we lost confidence, we didn't lose confidence. As I told you guys, we were disappointed, but we weren't discouraged. When we got back here. We just thought we have to try to win one game. And if we did that, then we could talk about the next one.

Q. Also, Channing had said last night there was a concerted effort to worry more about the first two days what you guys are doing and less about what the Lakers are doing. Is that accurate?
COACH GENTRY: No, I think that's true though all around. We just -- we weren't going to put all our effort in on trying to stop Kobe. Nobody's done it in 14 years, so it's ridiculous to think, okay, this is the way you'll stop him.
So what we tried to do is play the best defense we possibly could on him, and if he's going good, he's going good. There is nothing you're going to do about it. You can't get 81 points in an NBA game if somebody's trying to stop you, okay?
So we just decided that what we'd do is play him as best we could and try not to get discouraged and do a good job on the other guys.

Q. Kobe's such a great player; do you expect the rest of the players around Kobe to start contributing more?
COACH GENTRY: I hope not (laughing). I mean, I hope not. Hey, I think we'll continue to just try to do what we do and put ourself in the best position to try to win a game. That's all I can tell you. Stopping Kobe is not an option.

Q. There seemed to be a game changer in the second quarter when you tried to substitute Lopez to go in.
COACH GENTRY: That was pretty ironic, wasn't it? But sometimes the best substitutions are the ones you don't make. He wouldn't let him in, and Channing made a couple of shots.
And I said this last night in my press conference; the thing that I love about this team is that, you know, Robin was about to go in the game, Channing made shots. Robin looked like, Do you want me to come back? And he comes back, and there's never any complaints.
You can see that he was probably cheering as loud as anybody and as hard as anyone. That's kind of the chemistry and the character of this team, I think.

End of FastScripts

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