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NBA FINALS: HEAT v SPURSJune 7, 2014LeBron JamesSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day Q.  LeBron, do you use today as a day to challenge and kind of test your body after the last game or do you need another day of rest, and we'll just wait to Game 2 to test yourself? LeBRON JAMES: No, I'm going to get some work done today, but there is no way to test my body for what I went through. The conditions are nowhere near extreme as they was, unless I decide to run from here to the hotel, that's the only way I would be able to test my body out. But I'm doing well, doing a lot better. The soreness is starting to get out. I'm feeling better than I did yesterday and with another day, I should feel much better tomorrow. Q. What is your maintenance now consistent of? LeBRON JAMES: A lot of treatment, icing, stretching, obviously I'm going to get some cardio in today, get the heart rate going. A lot of fluids, kind of get my body above the curve. Q. Bike, cardio? LeBRON JAMES: Bike and running. Q. You've had a lot of looks at the Spurs defense in the playoffs over the years. What is it about their defense that makes it difficult for individuals to put up a lot of points on them? LeBRON JAMES: I think Tim Duncan is very good. Probably one of the best at protecting the rim. So they're able to funnel a lot of things to him. He's able to protect the rim. In that sense, very, very smart guy. I also think the length that they have had at the wing position helps out as well. Very active with their hands.  They kind of‑‑ they want to bait you into taking low‑percentage shots, and that's the contested two‑point shot. Layups and three‑point shots in our league is the number one and two, whatever team you have, as far as the most dangerous. So they kind of try to bait you into taking shots that maybe out your team's comfort zone. Q. The TV cameras caught you before Game 1 saying every game has got to be Game 7. I know your approach often doesn't change bought how taxing is it mentally to keep going to that Game 7 well, particularly with this opponent and these stakes? LeBRON JAMES: It can be taxing but at the end of the day, it is what it is at this point. Two weeks left in the season, then we all can go rest. Unless some of you guys go off and do baseball or football, whatever the case may be. So you have to try to put your mind at mindset and for me I did at Game 1, and for me the tank was empty and I used the reserve tank until my body couldn't go no more. I'm going to try to do the same thing on Tuesday. Obviously I don't want to go too far running my tank out. I want to be able to finish the game but you have to have that mindset, there is no tomorrow. But it's challenging, but for a championship you don't want it easy. Q. Dwyane said yesterday he thinks going longer in the rotation, Spo using more guys would have helped obviously. With Rio's foul trouble that may have broke things off a little bit. Do you anticipate going nine tomorrow? LeBRON JAMES: Every game is different. Obviously we could have used that in Game 1. I thought at times maybe Toney, J.J., U.D. could have gotten some minutes. Take the load off some of us, but each game is different. Spo is going to coach the game the way he sees the game going and flowing and we definitely going to ride with that, the way he calls the game. And like I said, Thursday's game was extreme measures. And I don't expect that tomorrow night, but we'll see. Q. LeBron, you guys have won your last 12 games after a loss in the playoffs. Can you take us inside the locker room? What changes with you guys coming off a loss? How is it different? And how have you been able to be so resilient in that situation? LeBRON JAMES: I just think experience. We have experienced it enough. Obviously we don't like experience in losses but it happens. We're able to bounce back, go to the film room, take account and not just bypass the mistakes we had in the previous game. And I think it's allowed us to move on and better ourselves for the next game. Q. LeBron, what's your definition of high basketball IQ? And with everything that goes through your mind, how do you manage it so that you don't overthink it? LeBRON JAMES: Well, that's the challenge, that's the biggest challenge, having a high basketball IQ because you play so many different situations in your head and so many different‑‑ I don't know, throughout the game that sometimes it could get into what's really important. And that's just sometimes going out and letting the game flow and just playing. But I think me having a high basketball IQ and I've been told this, that it's allowed me to see things before they happen, put guys in position, kind of read my teammates, knowing who is out of rhythm, who is in rhythm, knowing the score, the time, who has it going on the other end, knowing their likes and dislikes and being able to calibrate all that into a game situation. That's very challenging, but it comes natural, and when you know you have that, it helps your team out a lot. Q. Have you managed it better over the past few seasons? LeBRON JAMES: Well, it's grown more and more and more because I've experienced more. I've continued to be able to play in meaningful games every year, so that's helped out. I've been able to be around a great group of guys that's helped out, that allowed me to lead them. They trust my leadership, and basketball IQ comes into that leadership. It's helped out a lot having a group of guys that allow me to do it. Q. LeBron, yesterday you called yourself the easiest target in sports. You're a two‑time champion, a four‑time MVP. Why do you think that is? LeBRON JAMES: I don't think it, I know it. Q. Why do you think that is? LeBRON JAMES: I just am. I don't know. Because I've been in front of the camera and the camera has been in front of me since I was 15 years old. You guys have seen everything from me, from being an adolescent kid just playing the game of basketball because he loves it as a hobby, to now playing as a professional, to succeeding, going to the top, to falling off the mountain, to going up to the top again. You guys have seen everything that my life has had to offer since I was a 15‑year‑old kid. I don't know if Brian Windhorst is in here somewhere, is he? He could tell you my life story almost better than my mother could (Laughter.) So I think that has a lot to do with it. Half of my life I've been in front of this, so it makes me an easy target. Q. LeBron, Game 1 in the fourth quarter, Danny Green caught fire after struggling the first three quarters. You guys saw what he can do in The Finals last year. What do you need to do to make sure he doesn't get behind the arc? LeBRON JAMES: We just got at that keep our eye on him, we gave him no space last year, every time he caught the ball, he had a guy in his face and he had a guy run him off. The three threes he made in the first quarter, one was off a drive‑and‑kick where he got the ball wide open. The other one was a baseline drive‑and‑kick from Boris Diaw, where he swung the ball over to the wing and made a three. And the last was off an out‑of‑bounds play where they set us up. He set a cross screen for Diaw and Tim Duncanpinned down on him, and he was able to get a three with no contest. A guy like that you can't take an eye off of, you can't take a body off of and take account of where he is outside that three‑point line. Q. Boris Diaw made a good job of contesting your shots last season in The Finals in Game 1. How important of a match‑up is it for you personally? LeBRON JAMES: This series is not going to be defined by the LeBron‑versus‑Diaw match‑up. It's the Spurs versus the Heat. Whatever team makes the correct match‑up, the adjustments from game to game will win the series. Q. Talking a little bit about the mental approach after you had your body not do what you want it to in a big game, then you go into the next big game. You mentioned earlier you don't want to run the tank out but you want to go all out. What's the complicated balance of the mental approach when you're trying to figure out what your body can do and you know it's so important? LeBRON JAMES: Well, for me and the situation that happened in Game 1 is like you don't know it's going to happen. Obviously I felt the extreme measures, but I wasn't the only one out there on the floor. So you just play and you worry about the results later. You can't think about what may happen in the third or fourth quarter, live in the moment. And for me, whatever I can give my teammates if it happens again, hopefully I can make an impact while I'm on the floor and that's all that matters to me. I can live with the results. If I'm giving my all and playing as hard as I can, I'm putting my body and my mind on the line for us to win, you know, for that guy back there in the back, it's all that matters. Q. Is there any danger of getting distracted at all by, how am I feeling right now? LeBRON JAMES: No, they won't distract me. DWYANE WADE: Ready to go to practice so we can get better, bro? You been talking all day, let's go! LeBRON JAMES: Practice? Not the game! You talking about practice? All right. I gotta get to practice. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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