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NBA FINALS: MAVERICKS v HEATJune 4, 2011Rick CarlisleDALLAS, TEXAS: Practice Day Q. Coach, can you talk about the mindset it takes for a player like Dirk or Jet to perform like they are in the fourth quarter. COACH RICK CARLISLE: Look, at this point of the year, whoever five guys you have out there got to be ready to be engaged defensively. They have to be ready to make plays offensively. Dirk and Jet are two of our most important guys. Everybody knows that. We count on them to facilitate, but in situations where teams double up and commit two to the ball and try to take them away, other guys got to be ready to make plays. Q. Coach, can you talk about the familiarity they have had with each other and I guess their relationship over all these years. And it seems like they also have the ability to be quite honest with each other, too. COACH RICK CARLISLE: Yeah. Look, they've been through a lot. They've been here longer than anybody on our team. And so, you know, there's a lot of history. They've been through a lot of successful periods, and they've been through some disappointment. You know, the thing about this year's team, it's been a group that has held each other accountable. Dirk and Jet both, and that's a two-way street with them as well. For us we're going to have to play a complete game in Game 3. We haven't played a great game yet. Neither has Miami. It's very unusual to win a game the way we did in Game 2. That kind of template is not going to hold up in this series long-term. We know that. We're going to have to do a better job with taking care of the ball, and we're going to have to be solid defensively, and we're going to have to find a way to score points. Q. Do they both talk much about the last Finals and their feelings from that, how it affected them? COACH RICK CARLISLE: No, they don't. No. Q. Coach, do you have an update on Brendan Haywood? Was he able to do anything? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Day to day. He didn't do any contact things today, but he has made improvement, and tomorrow we'll see what's what. Q. If you don't have him available, how does that change things from a game-plan standpoint? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Well, we'll have to have somebody else ready to play. Mahinmi, we'll have to have him ready, or we can do some other things with some smaller lineups. Whoever plays, we're going to need them to be fully engaged, know exactly what we're doing defensively and offensively, and play within our system. Q. Rick, Shawn Marion has been scoring the ball for you. Do you consider him now your most consistent scorer in the paint? And with his defensive assignments, he may not be asked to score 20 points, but how critical is it when he does give you that 18 to 20 points a night? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Shawn is a basketball player. We're playing so much out of just flow and just random play that the guys right now, they have to read each other, they have to create space and be able to attack and be able to read situations very quickly. Look, I mean, Shawn is a terrific all-around player. He's not just a defender, he's not just an athlete, he's not just a post player. He can do a lot of different things. We're going to need him to just play his game. In terms is he the best paint point scorer? I don't know. If you counted it up, maybe it would be in Game 2. But over the course of the series, there are going to be ebbs and flows and we're going to need other guys to continue to step forward. Q. Coach, Corey Brewer was very effective at times in the Lakers series and looks like Peja has been struggling a little bit in these first two games against Miami. Any chance we'll see any of Corey Brewer in this series? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Possibly. He's ready. The one thing he's proven is that he's ready. He did have a very important eight-minute stretch during the Lakers series. He's got to be ready, if needed. Q. Coach, you talked about offensive rebounding before the last game, and you obviously did a better job there. Is that more of a scheme or is that just an effort thing that you guys were able to put more effort into in Game 2? COACH RICK CARLISLE: It's just disposition. It's scrambling and it's an awareness that our team has to have five guys on the boards. Because it's not just their bigs, it's not just Anthony, Haslem and Bosh. And in Game 1 it was Howard that hurt us. Wade slides in there, James slides in there, Chalmers is active, and you've got to be mindful that all those guys are a threat, and we got to keep bodies on them. We did do a better job. Then the thing we went haywire on was turnovers in the second game. We have to do a better job on that. Q. I know it kind of got lost in the shuffle a little bit given the comeback you had the other night, how important was it to keep LeBron off the foul line? COACH RICK CARLISLE: We want to keep these guys off the foul line. Look, there are a lot of situations I wish we would send them to the foul line and not allow them to go up and tear the rim down with dunks. That's hard. The thing is if he gets to the launching pad and he gets that kind of force going, even if you foul him, he's going to finish. So the situations where you try to keep him from getting to that launching area. When he and Wade get to it, they're ridiculously great. So, hey, we got to keep working the game, and we got to work to not only keep them off the foul line, but keep them from getting in the lane and keep them from rising up and hitting shots on us. It's not easy. Q. Rick, can you talk about the effect of the series shifting here to Dallas for your team. And also, I guess historically what looks like a pretty tough time for a team that has the three middle games. COACH RICK CARLISLE: We're coming home, but we know that's no guarantee of anything. We've lost at home this year in the playoffs. Now Miami has as well. The venue has significance, but it never guarantees anyone anything. We have a great crowd, just like Miami does. We need that energy. But they're not going to be out there running back on defense and trying to execute pick-and-roll coverages and those kinds of things. We've got to do that. The mistake that we're not going to make is feel like coming home is going to be something that helps get us over the hump. It's not going to be like that. Both these teams are too good of road teams. Q. Rick, you said neither team has played a great game so far. Can you pinpoint why? Is that a product of what the other side is doing so far? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Well, it's two good teams that are well prepared and generally do well the things they do well. And so, you know, as the series goes on, historically it gets tougher because the familiarity increases. But I believe that to be a true statement. I don't think Miami has played a fantastic game yet, and I know we haven't. And both teams have played well in a lot of stretches. Q. Coach, that staggered screen set that you ran several times in the fourth quarter, what do you like about that play and the options you can get out of it? And I imagine it's something you can't run too often, or you can't run it to death going forward. Do you think they'll adjust to it going forward? COACH RICK CARLISLE: Well, sure, they'll adjust to it. Look, we like anything that works. That's the bottom line. It created some opportunities for us, but we're not going to live on that in Game 3, and we know they're going to spend a lot of time preparing for it, and we're going to have to be ready to do that better and a lot of other things extremely well to get shots. Because this team is extremely difficult to score points on them. Scoring points aside, it's difficult to get good, clean looks. So that's where your ball movement, your screening, all those things have to be terrific, and a lot of times it takes three or four passes to break them down just so you can get some space to take a shot. And we know that. And we know that each possession offensively we're going to have to work, much like you have to work defensively. You're going to have to work by playing with force, moving the ball well, as I mentioned, we have to take turnovers, the high number of turnovers out of the equation. All those things are challenging. Q. Rick, what did you take or have you taken from the experience in '86 in playing for KC during those times now? Do you think of anything, or does anything come back to you? COACH RICK CARLISLE: The biggest thing, if there is something, I haven't had this question, but the level of play in The Finals. We were there three straight years. I was a young player back then, but back in those days, we played the Lakers one year, we played Houston the next year, when they got on a roll. They beat the Lakers. And the third year we played the Lakers again. At the time, those two teams, Boston and L.A., were the two premiere teams. The level of talent, the level of just overall -- what the great players bring to the game and the importance of the role players, it really is very similar to everything that goes on now. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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