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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 21, 2014Scott BrooksSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Game Two Q. Are you going with the same lineup tonight? SCOTT BROOKS: Yes. Q. Do you have to push to get Nick going offensively? I know it doesn't solve Serge, but kind of like in that last game‑‑ SCOTT BROOKS: With Nick, he does so many of those little things that sometimes Nick forgets that he has a wide‑open shot. He's a good shooter, and we want him to step up and take those shots, but he's so focused on playing pick‑and‑roll coverage to perfection, blocking out to perfection. He's a very fundamentally sound player, and that's how his mind‑‑ that's how he's wired, but sometimes he loses the opportunities to get a bucket here and there. Obviously we're not asking him to score 15 points, but he has to step up and shoot those shots. He had a couple of shots; unfortunately he missed them. But I believe in him. I believe he can step up and make those shots, but he'll get another opportunity tonight. Q. Is there anything the game film showed you that you didn't experience, or did you see something that you missed? SCOTT BROOKS: No, I mean, we knew obviously the points in the paint was problematic throughout that game. We did a better job in the second half with only 26 points, but we have to be able to control the basketball, and they set a lot of pick‑and‑rolls. This is probably the team that sets the most pick‑and‑rolls. They set over 70 something of them, and at least 25 or 26 I think it was dribble handoffs, so that's a lot of actions that you have to be able to cover. It's not one guy, it's all five guys are skilled and they can make plays with the basketball, and you have to be able to do that throughout the game for 24 seconds, and all five guys have to be locked in. One mistake, they will make you pay. We made some mistakes that hopefully we can clean up going into tonight. We can't go into screens on certain guys, and we did that‑‑ I think we gave them 12 points off of that. We just have to get better at what we have to do well. Q. When you look at Kevin's turnovers against the Clippers, do you feel like he's trying to force too many things or are they turnovers you can live with in the flow of the game? Obviously you try to limit as many as you can. SCOTT BROOKS: We definitely are an attack team. But turnovers is a mistake, just like a foul is a mistake. We have to be able to limit those as much as we can. Six turnovers, he's not happy. None of us are happy with that. There's going to be opportunities for him to continue to attack, and turnovers will happen, an offensive charge can happen if the guy is set there or is not set there. But I think he has the ball in his hands enough that he's going to have some turnovers, but I don't like the turnovers where he's back on his heels and he's not in an aggressive position. He had a couple of those last game. But the other ones, some things you've got to live with. Q. He said he can get to another level and will because the team needs him to. What do you feel like are areas that you'd like to see him address? SCOTT BROOKS: Well, Kevin, he's always challenging himself to get to another level. I think that's what the great ones are able to do, and they have to be able to do it consistently. That's what makes him special. He's so consistent. But defensively he can give us more activity in trying to keep the ball out of the paint. He has the ability to also‑‑ he has makeup speed in his length and his quickness, and his ability to get from the paint to the three‑point shooter is one of the best in the league, so he's going to have to be able to do that tonight, not only him but a lot of our perimeter guys. Q. I know it's a headache to play against them, but in some ways do you sort of marvel at the big three of San Antonio, or the old three, whatever you want to call them, playing this long and still playing together? SCOTT BROOKS: I have a lot of respect for them. I have a lot of respect for the organization. Obviously I have a lot of respect for Pop and how they play, how those three guys represent not only themselves, the team, the league, basketball in general. They are it seems like classy guys. I've been around Tony during a couple of All‑Star games I was fortunate enough to coach. Those three guys, they do it the right way. You talk about doing your work every year and trying to get better every year, they do that. They've won obviously many championships together, but they haven't won a championship in a while now, but they still get out there and find ways to get better, and they've improved over last season to this season. It's pretty impressive for them to keep them all together for this long and have a commitment to one another. Q. Playing a series against them, does that give sort of a model, put it in the heads of Westbrook and Durant, Ibaka, that they can‑‑ you guys can stay together a long time and get a lot of things done? SCOTT BROOKS: Well, when we played them last time, we played against them before, and we knew back then they were good. They're ageless. Tim Duncan is ageless. The guy, what he does is out of this world. He plays at a level that is‑‑ he has obviously improved through all the experiences he's had. The league sees what they do and they see how they run things and how they prepare and how they play every night. I think that's what we do. We're a team that wants to be consistent in our work every day and every year we want to come back better, and I think we've done that. I think the league sees how good they are. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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