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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v LAKERSMay 26, 2010Grant HillLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. Is tomorrow an important game considering at some point you're going to have to win in L.A. to get to Game 7? GRANT HILL: We want to keep the momentum going. At this point, every game is a must-win. So we're going to come out and play hard, play like we played the last two games. It's going to be hard to do with going into their arena, but I think we sort of rediscovered sort of what we need to do to be successful. A lot of it is just effort. Q. What does Alvin bring as a coach? GRANT HILL: Well, I just think he has the ability to empower. He's not -- he's certainly open to suggestions, open to hearing input from guys. You know, there is a balance between complimenting, but also holding accountable, and he's figured that out. I think he's a really -- his people skills are unique, and I think that in this day and age and in coaching, I think a lot of times it's just getting guys who want to go out and play for them. And he has a great feel, a feel for what the team needs, a feel for what's working. Not afraid to try to do things. Not afraid to have the bench out there closing the game out. And I think when he does that, it just gives everybody confidence. So he's got some unique skills on top of his understanding and knowledge of the game and strategy and all of that. But things really to relate in and spire, empower. Also, you know, be firm when necessary. Q. (Indiscernible)? GRANT HILL: I don't know, you know. We played zone a little bit this year. We've had some games where we lean on him a lot. But the zone, it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't work. It seems to be working now and we worked on a few wrinkles today, just constantly trying to get better at it. But whether it's the zone or man-to-man, whatever, when you have something that works and you have confidence, then guys believe in it more and you start to feel like it's a weapon for us. I'm sure you'll continue to see that the rest of the way. Q. Talk about how checking Kobe has changed the first two games and playing more of the zone the next two games? GRANT HILL: Well, all along we weren't worried about Kobe. We knew he was going to get his. Whether we play man or zone, he still manages to put up big numbers. The key is limiting everybody else. And the zone, what that does is it just keeps and prevents the post-ups. They did get some offensive rebounds, Bynum and Gasol, and certainly they have a lot of length. But they're not getting post-ups. They're not creating mismatches and then getting open looks for Artest and all those guys. So we can guard the paint and still contest jumpshots, and we can really force them to take more jump shots if we wanted to. But the key is to limit them in the points in the paint and that's what the zone does. Kobe's been smart enough to figure out how to get points, get his numbers to score and do whatever is necessary on fence. But it's how they're scoring which is the difference between the first two games and the last two. End of FastScripts |
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