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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v MAVERICKS

May 21, 2011

Scott Brooks

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: Game Three

DALLAS MAVERICKS Â– 93
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER - 87

SCOTT BROOKS: I thought they came out and did a great job from the start with their defensive pressure, and we did not do a good job offensively. But I thought they did a great job, really took us out of our sets. They were trapping on the basketball, just got us playing on our heels, and that's not how we play. The start was tough to overcome, but I give our guys a lot of credit. They fought back and made it a game into the fourth quarter.

Q. The start is clearly a story. Do you have any explanation for it?
SCOTT BROOKS: Well, partly it was they were really doing a great job defensively. They were very physical, really pushing us off of our spots and trapping the basketball. They did a great job. We were on our heels, and also we missed some shots. The combination of those two things led to a bad start offensively that down -- I think we were down, what, 17 points in that first quarter. That's tough to overcome against a very good team in the Playoffs. But we did cut the lead to 6 with three minutes and some change, and we had two threes that could have made the game even more interesting down the stretch.

Q. At that point where you had it down to 6, you had those three possessions, were you disappointed at all that Kevin not only doesn't shoot but doesn't touch the ball?
SCOTT BROOKS: Well, Russell's three might have been an opportunity for him to attack because his attack game was on tonight. He was attacking the basket with the way that he does. He's a very fearless attacker to the rim. But D.C.'s threes, they were wide open. That's what we have him in there for. He's a tremendous, big three-point shooter, and he had two good looks. I could not have complained about those two shots on D.C.
Kevin, yeah, we could have probably did a better job, but he wasn't having the offensive game, but he was still fighting and trying to find it, and I give him a lot of credit because he didn't give in to having a bad shooting game. He kept fighting. But those couple possessions, I thought the two threes were good. I thought Russell had a chance to attack, maybe drive and draw Dirk and D.C. was open for a three in the corner, in the left corner.

Q. You had the bad start, but your offense really never got going good maybe until the fourth quarter. You've had bad starts, but you generally snap out of it. You never really snapped out of it today. What were they doing differently defensively that they didn't do in Dallas?
SCOTT BROOKS: Well, they were guarding us much better, there's no question. They started the game off really hitting us and knocking us out of our offense. And we missed a lot of threes. Those threes weren't all contested. You know, 1 for 17 from the three-point line is not good. I think we missed 17 straight. I think Russell hit the last one.
But we've got to better. We've got to get better. We know that they did a good job of knocking us off -- getting us out of our offense. We come back -- I'm proud of our guys. They could have easily said, this is not our night. We were down 23. That's a large number to overcome, but they did. They did. They cut it down to six, and that second half was much better. We played much better defense in the second half, and we played even better offense in the second half.

Q. Obviously, Game 2 was a huge emotional victory, you steal the home court advantage in Dallas. Any chance coming out in this game there might have been an emotional letdown coming off such a huge game?
SCOTT BROOKS: No, that's not -- no, we just did not play well from the start. As the game went into the second half, we played much better, but still, when you get down 23, that is such a difficult number to overcome even on your home floor.
They're a good team. We understand that, and you give a good team 23 points -- but they earned it. They really did a great job defensively. I mean, that first quarter, that really just got us out of sync, and we could never really overcome -- we fought to overcome it but just did not have enough.

Q. Dallas is not the quickest team in the league. What was it about their defense that made it difficult? And secondly, did you perhaps shoot too many threes under the circumstances?
SCOTT BROOKS: Well, when you miss the threes that we missed, yes, I would go back and tell the guys, why did you shoot those. But a lot of them were good shots. It's the threes that were bad. I'd have to go back over the film and look at those.
But our track record when we do shoot threes, they're normally good shots because we are such a great penetrating team so we usually draw an extra defender on the ball. So we always have kick-out threes, and they're always good. I'm assuming that's the case tonight, but I'm not sure.
Our spacing wasn't as good. The traps bothered us. But we just have to play much better offensively, and we can't get ourselves in a 17-point hole in that first quarter.

Q. Were you surprised at how well Jason Kidd was able to play Russell and Kevin on defense and just how he managed the game?
SCOTT BROOKS: Well, Jason, you guys all know him for the last 17, 18 years he's been in this league, that he gives you everything he has. He's what you want out of a professional athlete. Give everything on the court for his team. Nothing he does surprises me, other than playing the way he's playing at his age. I mean, I couldn't do it when I was 30, play good basketball, and he's doing it late in his 30s. I give him a lot of credit. He keeps his body and mind in a well-conditioned athlete that plays hard every night. He battles. He competes against whoever he is in front of, and that's what you want. He's a terrific player.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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