|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 29, 2014Gregg PopovichSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Game Five Q. Same starters tonight, Pop? GREGG POPOVICH: Probably not. Q. If you do make a change, who will be in? GREGG POPOVICH: Who will be in? Q. In the starting lineup, if you do make a change, who will be the new guy? GREGG POPOVICH: We're trying to figure it out right now. Q. Did you learn anything useful those last 16 minutes when your bench guys played so well in terms of personnel that you might be able to use in this series? GREGG POPOVICH: Playing with passion and determination is a good thing. Q. Individually, anybody warrant more playing time? I'm asking mainly about Joseph, who really seemed to give them a lot of problems. GREGG POPOVICH: Well, I think you're exaggerating the situation, but he did do a good job. Q. Any movement to try to make the Thunder shoot more threes, pack it in the lane, see if they can make threes? GREGG POPOVICH: I'll talk to the guys about that. We'll bring that up, and we'll throw it around a little bit and see if it makes sense to them. Good suggestion. Q. They only shot 17. Generally, if you make them shoot more‑‑ GREGG POPOVICH: Exactly. If somebody on my staff leaves, I'll give you a call and we'll talk. (Laughter). You seem to be pretty incisive. Q. How can the team play smarter? GREGG POPOVICH: That's something that can be done at both ends. You take what's given. For instance, teams play a certain way on defense. You can't make things happen. For instance, if somebody decided to double‑team a certain player all night long, you're wasting your time trying to get that player shots. They can go do that if they want. So if that's what's given, you have to decide what you want to do in response to that and not be stubborn about certain things. As far as defense is concerned, playing smart is knowing who you're guarding. For instance, when you close out, if you close out short, you go out, get them off the three‑point line. Am I aware, defensively, on the weak side in transition when somebody is coming down on the opposite side? Am I ready to do what I need to do? There's a lot of ways you can be smart on the court. Q. How do you stop them from running the way they did in Game 4? GREGG POPOVICH: Make more baskets. Don't turn it over. Those would be two good places to start. Q. They only had seven turnovers in Game 4. Usually they're good even when they're playing pretty well for a lot more than that. It would seem like you'd have to get more turnovers on them to be successful. GREGG POPOVICH: We've never been a big turnover‑creating team. We're not that athletic. We don't really, historically, get out and get after people in passing lanes and that sort of thing. Q. Will you live with the seven if you have to? GREGG POPOVICH: Yeah, I'm just saying we're not built for me to go to my team and say, they turned it over X number of times, we want to double that tonight. That's not something I would say to my team, because they wouldn't know how to do that. And I wouldn't know what to tell them how to do that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|