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NBA FINALS: MAVERICKS v HEATJune 11, 2011LeBron JamesMIAMI, FLORIDA: Practice Day Q. LeBron, what's the last 48 hours sort of been like for you, 36, whatever it's been? And just where is the confidence level now as -- Spo talked about how none of you would have declined the offer to play two games at home for a world title. Is that how you look at it? Or do you go even more deeper than that? LeBRON JAMES: The last 48 hours have been thinking about Game 5. Some of the opportunities we had to win. Some of the opportunities I had to make plays, and either made them or didn't. At one point we look at it we're up three with three and a half minutes to go. We had an opportunity. We played well enough to win that game, even though with them making 13 threes, unbelievable shooting for them. We still had an opportunity to win. I thought about that and also kind of shifted my focus to how can I be better and how can our team be better in Game 6. We worked all year to get home court, and even though we're in an elimination game, we feel like we still have a great opportunity with this series coming back to Miami, two games on our home floor. Q. LeBron, you're averaging something like 44 minutes a game in this series. Is that too much? LeBRON JAMES: I don't think it's too much. I feel like I'm in world-class condition. Like I said, anytime you get a little rest here, a little rest there, it definitely helps. I wouldn't say it's too much. I don't think so. I don't feel like I'm hurting my team for the time I'm out there. I don't feel like it's too much. Q. LeBron, you said that you've played well enough to win in these games. How frustrating is it knowing that the tough shots that they're hitting late, they go 13-for-19 from the three-point line, and you can't change any of that. You're still down 3-2. Do you feel you guys are still right where you need to be? LeBRON JAMES: It's frustrating, of course. When you look at the three games we lost, we all had the opportunity to win. Game 2 being up 15. In Game 4, we had an opportunity. And in Game 5 we had an opportunity. It is frustrating when you look back at the film and you watch and you see some of the mistakes that you had, not only individually but as a team. But it's something you can't -- you have to try to move on. But also learn from those games where you had an opportunity to win and seeing the games where you won, where you took advantage of them. So I think it's a new game, Game 6 being tomorrow night, and we're looking forward to it coming back to our home floor. Q. LeBron, you talked about the last 48 hours, have you looked at your shot in terms of technique or anything? Have you been analyzing why the shot just doesn't look the same of late? LeBRON JAMES: At this point I don't think technique has anything to do with it. Shots go in, shots don't go in. I don't stop to think about my technique or anything like that. One thing about me, you just be aggressive. And when you have the shot, you take them. Some of the same shots I've taken in the other series, they went in. They're not going in for me right now, that won't deter me from taking that opportunity once I get them again. Q. There's urgency and there's pressure. How do you sort out the differences between that? And how do you tell how your teammates are handling those few things? LeBRON JAMES: I think the game of basketball can be pressure. It doesn't matter if it's The Finals or the Conference Finals or first round. Playoff basketball is all about pressure, how you can handle it. There's a sense of urgency because we're on an elimination game coming into Game 6. But it's something if I sit here and say we haven't seen everything to help us out to get to this position this year, I would be lying to myself and lying to our team. This is a position -- I mean, we wouldn't want to be in this position being down 3-2. But at the same time we're going to relish the opportunity being back on our floor. Q. LeBron, can you talk about J.J. Barea, what you guys have to do to contain him a little better? LeBRON JAMES: I mean, honestly, J.J., he shot the ball extremely well. The guy hit four threes, three of them was at the end of the shot clock with him not even holding his follow-through. A guy like that once he gets into the lane and he gets a few lay-ups, get into the flow, his outside shot becomes better, just like a lot of us. Myself and D-Wade, if you allow us to get two or three lay-ups, we feel like we're in a good rhythm. So we have to do a better job of trying to keep him out the paint. If you keep him out of the paint early, that's better for us. He doesn't shoot the ball as well as he would if he gets a few lay-ups here, a few lay-ups there, a couple of free-throws. He's a key. We always say he's a key. J.J. being a key and J.T. being a key to their success. Q. When you've looked at the fourth quarters, have you seen yourself being less aggressive? LeBRON JAMES: I've seen myself being less aggressive at times. A few reasons is most of the time I feel like D-Wade has it going. In situations where in the past in the last series there was times I had it going, in the Chicago series or in the Boston series, and our team just rolled me offensively. Guys just try to pick it up, some way, somehow. D-Wade has been playing extremely well in the fourth quarter. CB has played well. And just haven't found my niche in the fourth quarter thus far. You look at it, tomorrow is another opportunity for me to make an imprint on this series in the fourth quarter and help our team win. Q. LeBron, it's likely no athlete has been scrutinized the way you have prior to this. And I know you went through it a lot last summer and through the season, but this is The Finals. It's a bigger stage. What have you learned through the first week, week and a half of this that you can apply to the next few days about how to handle this and the attention that's on you? Because that's something Erik was just talking about, how your mentality of processing all that. LeBRON JAMES: It's nothing that I've seen over The Finals that I didn't know coming into this series. I understood this is a huge series. It's a huge stage. I want to play well, of course. I want to help this team win a championship. That's all it's about. The things that you can't control, the ball going in for you, or you playing extremely well every single game. The game doesn't happen like that. If I wanted to be that way, I would love for it to be. I have to do what's best for our team to help put our team in a position to win ballgames. That's the only thing I can control. Q. How much does all this stuff around you seep through to you in your mind when you're by yourself just hanging out? LeBRON JAMES: The losses do. That's all it's about for me, winning and losing. Of course, I get on myself, I'm hard on myself about wanting to play well, because I feel like that's what I need to do for my teammates. But to answer questions about what's written about me or anything like that, I don't really feed into it. It's going to be written no matter what, no matter if I play well or not. I had a triple-double last game. I had a bad game in a lot of people's eyes. I understand that. That's just the situation I'm in. That's the bowl I'm in right now. I can only satisfy my teammates. That's the way I look at it. Q. LeBron, there's a video circulating that's gathered some buzz about you and Dwyane pretending to be sick, and there's been a lot of interpretations about what that was all about. Can you tell us what was going on. LeBRON JAMES: I'm not feeding into that. If you guys want to feed into everything that not only myself or D-Wade or the Miami Heat do, I think that's a non-issue. There's bigger issues in this series than that. Q. LeBron, earlier this season when you and Dwyane said you guys had figured it out offensively, you said you weren't thinking about him, you were thinking about what you needed to do and you weren't worried about him getting his touches, you were worried about how you personally played. Now that you're in The Finals, are you overthinking whether Dwyane is feeling it and you don't want to disrupt that? Or are you going away from what you guys did to get figured out? LeBRON JAMES: I don't think so. I think we have figured it out in the sense of what makes our team successful. Just like in the last series, I feel like D-Wade was out of rhythm, I just tried to pick it up offensively. And it's kind of vice versa right now. I haven't been in a good rhythm offensively. He's tried to pick it up. Guys have tried to pick it up in my absence offensively. That doesn't mean that we're back to square one. We've worked to playing too many games to go back to square one. If I make a few plays here, make a few plays there, then the whole course changes from me being 8-for-19 last game to being 10-for-19. You just got to be able to stick through it, watch film and figure out ways that you can help this team win offensively, because that's what it's about also. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, LeBron. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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