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NBA FINALS: MAVERICKS v HEAT

May 31, 2011

Rick Carlisle

MIAMI, FLORIDA: Game One

Dallas Mavericks 84
Miami Heat 92

Q. Rick, the Heat have played in a lot of games like this in the Eastern Conference Finals. This sort of looked like Eastern Conference basketball tonight. Did they get the game the way they wanted it to go? Was it a matter your offense was a little off and not hitting shots you wanted? Or do you think we might see this kind of series in the 80s, the 70s, maybe the low 90s?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: Shots are going to be hard to come by. Both teams are really locked in and making a strong defensive effort. We've been playing series, our Portland series was the first team to 80 was winning those games. This is nothing new to us. Lakers are not a real fast-tempo team. Oklahoma City played faster. We know that the tempo is going to vary some, but by and large, we got to play better just overall. We have to be more opportunistic. Our shot-making has to be better and our rebounding has to be better. We're minus 10 on offensive boards. That's 10 more opportunities that they have the ball and we don't.
Those are two big areas.

Q. Rick, that's actually my question. What do you think caused that rebounding disparity tonight?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: Well, our bigs have to be active, containing their great players on the perimeter. So it draws them away from the basket some. I'll look at the film. I can give you a better answer tomorrow. I don't know every single play.
Look, a lot of the game is a scramble. We have to keep five guys in there. We can't have that kind of deficit. You leave too much to chance.

Q. Only six offensive boards for you guys. You've been a real strong offensive rebounding team in the postseason.
COACH RICK CARLISLE: We've been fine there. We had more second-chance points than them. But the biggest issue is there's ten more times we don't get the ball and they have it. So the possession of the ball is key.

Q. Rick, you've been so reliant on your bench in the playoffs. Did they just struggle tonight or was it a case of not making shots or was it something the Heat were able to do defensively to take your bench out of the game?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: We'll play better. I'm very certain of that. Again, we had some opportunities that -- shots we normally make, they didn't go down. And so that was tough.
But look, it's a long series. And we'll adjust and do the things we need to do to get ourselves in a better position. This is a very good basketball team we're playing. They were more opportunistic tonight than we were. That's been one of the traits of our run. We've been very opportunistic. Tonight we weren't as much.

Q. It seemed like in the second quarter you were able to shake off whatever jitters or rust you had. Dirk got on track in that quarter. In the third they really seemed to clamp things down. What changed from their perspective in the third quarter?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: We started the quarter on a 7-0 run, which got us an eight-point lead, which gave us the momentum. Then they answered. They responded well. Again, during that period they were making a run at us. I thought we did a good job of hanging in. And, again, I thought there were some critical situations where we needed to somehow come up with one loose ball here or go make a shot there that would have made a big difference. But it didn't happen.
We've got to look at the film, see what's what, in terms of what adjustments are appropriate. But we have to play better all-around basketball. We have to make more shots.

Q. Rick, were you impressed with how the Heat played defense in the fourth?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: They're a very good defensive team. It was tough to get shots all night. Both teams shot under 40%. That gives you some idea of how difficult good, clean shots are going to be to come by in this series.

Q. Rick, I know you haven't looked at any film yet on this, but how much do you think your zone had to do with the rebounding disparity? And what did you like and not like about your zone in this game?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: My sense is that the zone was okay, was pretty good. I thought it got us through some stretches where our matchups were challenging, to say the least. But, again, you know, during those periods also, we had opportunities to get some open looks, and we didn't knock them down. And that was costly in the scope of the big picture of 48 minutes.
That stretch in the late first, early second where we're doing okay with the zone and getting some opportunities and not cashing in on them, that hurts. Again, our overall game has got to be better.

Q. What did you think of how they defended Dirk tonight?
COACH RICK CARLISLE: Well, every team we've played is very aggressive on him. He's a unique player. He's got to be denied the ball virtually everywhere on the floor. Haslem is a guy that has the wherewithal to do that. And they're going to play him aggressively. And we know that.
We just got to keep playing our game. We have to keep getting him the ball and giving him opportunities to create. The biggest thing is we have to straighten out the rebounding and we have to do a better job of putting the ball in the basket.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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