|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v WARRIORSJune 4, 2015Klay ThompsonOAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: Game One Warriors – 108 Q. I know that you expected to play all along after the concussion last week. But you weren't cleared until like Tuesday or so and maybe Wednesday. How did you feel tonight, and how do you think you played? KLAY THOMPSON: I thought I played well. I felt great, honestly. It's obviously a dream to be here, and it was fun to embrace the moment. We all had nerves that first quarter, you could tell just how we were throwing the ball around. It was good to calm down and play our style of ball. Like I said, it just felt great to get the win. Q. Obviously, it was a long game. How was the week off? Do you think‑‑ I know you needed it for your situation, but for both teams, do you think that it played a part maybe in fatigue? Maybe too much rest or threw guys out of sync? KLAY THOMPSON: I think we might have been rusty initially, but I think it was good for both teams just to get back healthy. Both teams have wounded players. For us to come out and play with the energy we did, I mean, that is the easiest, NBA Finals. But it was good for both teams to get the week off. Now we're right back in the swing of things and it feels great. Q. What makes it so difficult to cover, to defend Kyrie, and how much will it change this series if he can't play or is limited by his injury? KLAY THOMPSON: Well, I mean, you saw how great he was on one knee. He's an All‑NBA type of talent. He's tough to guard because he can go both ways. He can finish with his right, his left, shoot the three, shoot the mid‑range, and just plays at his own pace. So he's going to be a challenge for us. And I look forward to embracing the challenge of guarding him, and I think everybody does. Q. Andre Iguodala wound up with the short straw defending LeBron for the last, seemed like, half hour. Talk about the difficulty in doing that, and what his greatest contributions were to you tonight? KLAY THOMPSON: Well, Andre, he's one of the best defenders in the league, and obviously LeBron had a great game. But he made it so tough on him that last quarter and a half. He's got long arms. He's very active. Some of the best hands I've ever seen, and he did it on both ends. So that's going to be pivotal in this series, is our bench play, and they played great tonight. We're one of the deepest teams I've ever been on. That's what we're doing all year is just wearing on teams, and Andre was an example of that tonight. He played both ends like a champion, and really stepped up for us. And that's what we expect for him. He's such a great player. Q. First of all, congratulations on the victory. Can you explain why it happened to be, again, the rough start, and the fact that you looked very bad in the beginning? KLAY THOMPSON: Wow. Don't hold back (smiling). It might have just been nerves a little bit. Rushed my shot a little bit. It's the biggest stage I've obviously been on. Q. Not you personally. The team? KLAY THOMPSON: That's all right. I didn't play well in the beginning, so that's okay. We were just a little rusty. After the first six minutes I feel like we started moving the ball a lot better, and our bench unit did a great job establishing the ball movement and playing in a great flow, and we learned that from our starters on the bench, we saw how effective that was, and we did a better job of that. But we can't come out Game 2 with the same‑‑ we can't get down 14. We have to come out and play with a ton of fire and look at it as a must‑win, because that would be huge to go into Cleveland 2‑0? Q. Being down 14 and then that foul was a 24‑7 run. Can you talk about how that really re‑energized the ballclub, and you were back in this game, and the cobwebs are gone, the eight days are behind us, and just the feeling that you had in the huddle coming back out after those timeouts? KLAY THOMPSON: Well, we've done a great job all year not panicking. We know how talented our roster is. We've been down 20, 25, we still come back and win. So we're never out of it. And Steve told us, it's going to be a long game, and he was right. We have plenty of opportunities to get back into it, and our bench did such a great job by coming back in and playing with great energy and increasing the tempo. So we went down 14, we didn't panic. We came to the huddle, and we understood it's going to be a long game, we've just got to take it a possession at a time. 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
|