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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HEAT v PACERSMay 26, 2014Erik SpoelstraMIAMI, FLORIDA: Game Four Indiana Pacers - 90 Q.  Erik, you've been talking for a few days about getting that best game, getting to your game. How close was this on both ends of the court of getting to that best game? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Well, certainly, it's much more to how we want to play, and the start helped. We came out with a tremendous amount of energy, and that was on both ends of the court. It wasn't just about making shots. It was working the offense, even some of the ones we missed. But guys were expending a lot of energy to get after it defensively, and we had to make a lot of subs in the first half. That's what's required in this series, that we go a little bit deeper in the bench, guys play until their tank is empty, to be able to impact the game the way we needed to be. Q. Erik, when did you know that Chris Andersen wouldn't play tonight, and what went into the decision? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: I had a little bit of a feeling last night, but he kept on saying that he was going to play. Even during the afternoon, he said he was going to play. Those injuries are tricky. He wanted to fight through it, but his range of motion in his thigh isn't great right now, and he just was able to spend about 10, 12 hours in treatment on it. He's been dealing with a lot of minor things, and this was the one thing that we didn't allow him to play through. So we'll see how he feels tomorrow. But it was definitively a late decision, but I had a feeling last night. Q. It was three hours ago, so I apologize, but just laying out the whole scheme of it, how critical it is with Chris to get him going in the opening minutes, and maybe get everyone in turn kind of settled down? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: The one cool thing about it was his teammates were real aggressive to try to get him going. That's nice to see, when your brothers are wanting you to be aggressive and look for opportunities. You could see it. Even though we ran maybe a couple of actions, the rest of it was those four other guys trying to create an action for him to get some air space. But he was engaged and active on both ends of the court, and he can impact it. I hate the story lines of the last few days because Chris has to do a lot of those things that people don't understand for our game to work, and he gets criticized for that, but he impacts the game in so many winning ways that the average eye doesn't necessarily see. But for him to make some shots and feel good about his game on that side of the floor certainly was nice. Q. Talk about LeBron's aggressiveness offensively today, a lot of drives to the basket. COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Yeah, you know, I don't know if I made a play call for him, maybe one post‑up where I called it, but the rest of it was just within the context of what we do. He was finding gaps and opportunities to be aggressive where he was ahead of the play, but it wasn't necessarily just clear everybody out and let me just attack one‑on‑five. So he understood that we needed to get off to a good start, one, and then, two, that he is our best attacker, and that's important for us to be able to try to dictate this game and this series. He's our best way to be able to impact that at the rim and at the paint. Q. Do you think the Stephenson thing sparked him a little? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: No, no. I think more of a factor was that we've gotten off to three poor starts, and it's really affected us during the course of the game. Q. Erik, how did you determine to go with Rashard Lewis? And what do you feel like he gave you? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Again, I loved his stat line. Really, I just‑‑ I get a kick out of it. I think it's great. Zeros all the way across the board, and he's a plus‑14. As soon as I found out, I went up right to him and told him that. It's just there's so many different ways to impact the game to win, and he understands that. So we wanted to maintain a little bit of our rotation while losing Bird that we just moved U.D. into that slot. Q. The moves you made in the starting lineup and playing Norris Cole so much and things like that, do you feel like some of those have been risks, or have those been obvious moves for you? COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: No, nothing's ever obvious in the playoffs. Look, it's competition, and you're just trying to figure a series out as it goes. Sometimes things go in your favor, and sometimes they don't, but collectively you have to figure it out. We have a group that's committed to sacrificing to understand the big picture, and we need‑‑ in this series in particular, probably more so than any other series that we've played in, we have to go deeper into our bench. It's critical. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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