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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: KINGS v COYOTESMay 22, 2012Dave TippettPHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Five THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Tippett. Q. Dave, another day, another press conference. Five hours, six hours until Game5. Give us a sense of where the team is heading into this elimination game. COACH TIPPETT: Our backs are against the wall. Still we know we have to play very well if we have a chance to win. Coming home, we know there will be lots of excitement in the building. There were some things that last game I thought we did better than we had the three previous games in the series. So we can hopefully build on some of those things. Ultimately I think it will be a tight game that you're going to need a couple critical plays made or a couple critical saves. If you get that, it will give you a chance to win. Q. Aucoin's status? COACH TIPPETT: Game time decision. Q. Anticipating any other lineup changes? COACH TIPPETT: Not anticipating, but not ruling them out either. Q. When you take six penalties, do you talk about tightening up your game? COACH TIPPETT: There's some discipline stuff that we certainly can tighten up. There's a couple calls that I thought we can take out of our game. There's a couple you're going to have to live with, with the calls that are being made. We don't want to give them those penalties. Six penalties are too many in a game. If you look at our whole season, we're the least penalized team in the league. It's not like we're running around out there undisciplined. We've taken a couple penalties every game. We could take those out of the equation. Q. You talk a lot about quality shots versus quantity of shots. How do you grade or identify a quality shot? COACH TIPPETT: I have a criteria where the shot has to come from on the ice, whether it's a screen, non‑screen. There's a lot of different things that fall into quality, non‑quality. Q. Game4 you felt the quality shots for you were probably up and for them were probably down? COACH TIPPETT: Every game is different. They were closer. Sometimes the shot totals can be misleading. Q. (Question regarding the fans and the city.) COACH TIPPETT: It's been a steady growth. The buzz continues to get better and better. Obviously this run in the playoffs here has been a lot more excitement. Notice a lot of people that maybe were acquaintances before, but now you have a lot of people that know exactly what's going on. Instead of, Did you play last night? It's, Great game, tough luck last night. It's great for the city. Q. For you personally living here, has that been an easy adjustment? COACH TIPPETT: Oh, yeah, I don't mind living in Arizona at all. This is a pretty nice place to live. Q. Have you been here for the 108 temperatures? COACH TIPPETT: Yes, I have. I have no problem with the temperatures. 108, but it's a dry heat (laughter). We had a gametwo weeks ago in Nashville, I think it was mid 90s with humidity. I'll take 108 dry over humidity. Not that I'm saying Nashville is a bad place. Q. (No microphone.) COACH TIPPETT: The thought with him is he's a sound player. Size has been a factor. His wall work, his work on the board check, has been pretty solid. Q. Would you like to have one line that's focusing on defense more? COACH TIPPETT: No, we want everybody focusing on both sides. Gordon and Pouliot, Chip, can give us some solid minutes, real hard‑grinding minutes, that's what we're looking for there. Q. Do you monitor your scores at all privately? COACH TIPPETT: There's always behind‑the‑scenes coaching going on. If you're talking about Vrbata and Whitney, they want to score more than anybody. It's just a matter of them finding the opportunities to have some success. Vrbata last game, getting that one in the slot, just missed, maybe that's a good sign of things to come. Q. Can their speed help combat the size, on the wings particularly? COACH TIPPETT: Whatever your best assets are, you've got to bring those every night. If you're smaller and faster, that's what you have to do to be successful. If you're big and strong like a bull, you play like a bull. Whatever you can bring to the party, that's what we're looking for. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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