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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v WARRIORS


May 26, 2016


Kevin Durant

Russell Westbrook


Oakland, California: Game Five

Golden State 120 - Oklahoma City 111

Q. Kevin and Russell, Kev, you guys missed a lot of shots in the paint tonight that you hadn't been missing. [Andrew] Bogut played a lot more. Is it tougher to score when he's been in the game? He played 30 minutes. He hasn't been playing near that long.
KEVIN DURANT: He's a good rim protector. But I thought we had good looks that we missed. I remember a couple times we had two or three lay-ups that we missed. Enes [Kanter] missed a couple up in the paint, I missed a few. But he's a good rim protector, and he's been doing that for them all season. But we got great looks, there's nothing more than that.

Q. It was a game of runs, obviously, but did you feel like the one to start the fourth that they had their bench crew out there and went 8-0 real quick, was that kind of a game changer?
KEVIN DURANT: Yeah, it was. They made shots. They made those two threes that were huge for them and kind of stretched the lead. Yeah, that was tough. Their bench came in and made shots, made plays for them tonight.

Q. Kevin, as you guys move forward to Saturday now, where's your mind at? You guys took care of business pretty handily in Oklahoma City. Where's your head at going forward?
KEVIN DURANT: Oh, we know we're going back home. But we can't relax. We've got to keep our foot on the gas, and we've got to play much better. I thought we played extremely hard tonight. They didn't outplay us, they didn't outwork us. I thought both teams were in a slugfest tonight. So we've got to bring that energy back home. It was a matter of us making a few shots and playing a little more solid defense on them. We'll see what happens.

Q. Russell, your small lineup with Dion [Waiters] and Andre [Roberson] together was so effective in Oklahoma City. It wasn't nearly as effective tonight. What do you think was the difference tonight?
RUSSELL WESTBROOK: I'm not sure. I mean, we're going to stick to it. We trust in our guys and we've got confidence in our lineup. We'll be all right.

Q. K.D., Billy [Donovan] pointed directly to the free throw disparity as one of the two biggest keys in the game. Your thoughts on that?
KEVIN DURANT: They shot more than us, but it was a few possessions here and there. We got some good looks. You know, we could have -- you know, we had some turnovers, but it's not mainly just because of the free throws. Obviously, that's easy points. But there are a lot more plays in the game that we could have been better at. All of us know it. So we've got to watch film and see where we can grow.

Q. Just to follow up on the free throws. For this whole series except Game 1 the home team has led in free throw attempts. Not trying to beat you into a fine or anything. But why do you think there are more free throw attempts for the home team?
KEVIN DURANT: I have no clue. I mean, just being aggressive. The more aggressive team's going to get the calls. So I thought tonight we were pretty aggressive as well. They were too. But it's not on us. We can't control that. We've still got to go out there and play. I think we didn't let that affect us. We played with a lot of confidence and a lot of heart and grit tonight. We've just got to be better next game.

Q. Obviously it's a tough night. Curry's shooting better, but he also came up with a big steal in the fourth. Do you think that he's underrated as a defender?
KEVIN DURANT: I mean, getting steals, I don't know if that's just -- that's a part of playing defense, but he's pretty good, but he doesn't guard the best point guards. I think they do a good job of putting a couple of guys on Russell from [Klay] Thompson to [Andre] Iguodala, and Steph, they throw him in there sometimes. He moves his feet pretty well. He's good with his hands. But, you know, I like our matchup with him guarding Russ.

Q. Russell, switching it the other way around. Steph had his most effective game tonight of the series, it looked like. Was he doing anything different? Were you guys doing anything different? What did you see in Curry tonight?
RUSSELL WESTBROOK: Didn't do nothing different. He made some tough shots, got to the line, made him shoot tough shots and make him finish over our bigs.

Q. The rhythm on offense didn't seem like it was there tonight as it was the last two games. What did you think of the ball movement, shot selection? You had a lot of turnovers as well.
RUSSELL WESTBROOK: I mean, we can do better. Like Kevin said, we missed a lot of easy shots, and definitely some passes that we could have made, some turnovers on my behalf. But we'll go back and look at the film and see where we can get some more open shots at, and hopefully we'll finish with easy baskets at our house.

Q. How much do you want that three back with 35 seconds left?
KEVIN DURANT: Oh, [Bleep], yeah, that would have been 30 seconds to go, three-point game. Hell, yeah, I want it back. But I'm living with that. I'm living with that. I can't think about it. Just move past it. I had a great look. Russell made an unbelievable play, put me in position to knock down the open shot. Maybe I need two guys flying at me, maybe I would have made it. But, yeah, I wish I could have hit that one.

Q. How much did it hurt or throw your rhythm off that Steven [Adams] got a couple quick fouls early and had to go to the bench?
KEVIN DURANT: I think that took away from his aggressiveness a little bit. We knew coming in the game they were going to try to look for Steven and look to see his physical play. But I thought he did a great job of coming back in and playing hard and making plays for us. So you get two fouls early, you think about it a little bit. But he did a good job which is kind of locking back in and playing well the rest of the game.

Q. You guys shot 59 of your team's 91 shots between the two of you. Are there times where you guys get caught up in just your own game and sometimes forget about the guys around you?
KEVIN DURANT: No, that's who we are. We've got to be aggressive. When they're going in, you won't say anything. But we happened to miss some tonight. But we were aggressive. We were right there. We had an opportunity to win the basketball game. That's what we do. That's how we play, like it or not.

But like I said, I make four more shots, Russell make five more shots and you're not really talking about it, so you can't say nothing when we miss, but don't say nothing when we make them.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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