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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS VS SPURS

May 15, 2017

Mike Brown

Oakland, California: Practice Day

Q. Mike, day one of the series, you guys on both sides are talking about the history between the coaching staffs and all the relationships. Then day two, because of that play with Kawhi and Zaza, I'm sure you've heard about what Pop said this morning. Were you surprised that he was so fired up, and what is your response to the way he sees that situation?
COACH BROWN: You know, he's just protecting his guys. Obviously, there was a chain of events that happened. Right before that, Kawhi stepped on David Lee's foot and tweaked his ankle. Then that play happened. Then at the 7:23 mark, a couple plays or a play later, Steph shot the ball and LaMarcus Aldridge went to contest, and he went underneath Steph, and Steph avoided landing on his ankle by falling to the ground. I even asked two of the three officials. I said, Hey, that's the same call that you just called on Zaza, and both of them told me that the difference was that Kawhi landed on Zaza's foot. Steph avoided landing on LaMarcus's foot, and that's why they didn't call the foul or whatever they called on Zaza. So it's the same play.

Zaza is not a dirty player. LaMarcus is not a dirty player. It's a tough basketball play, and you hate to see anybody get injured on a situation like that. But you go back and watch the film, and they're both identical. Two guys shooting the ball. Two big guys going out to contest. They slide under the shooter a little bit. Neither one, I don't think, on purpose. One happens to land on one's foot and the other one doesn't.

Q. Are you surprised that he would call that dangerous and unsportsmanlike?
COACH BROWN: He's protecting his guys. He's doing what he should do to protect Kawhi.

Q. Do you think there could be further action from the league on this?
COACH BROWN: No.

Q. You're not concerned what Zaza's reactions might be? Now with what Popovich is saying, you don't think that might affect him?
COACH BROWN: I mean, no. Shoot, I told him he was a terrible player compared to Klay when he thought he outscored Klay the other night, and he went out and had a heck of a game yesterday against the Spurs. I don't think anybody is talking about him is going to affect him. Zaza is mature. Maybe if he was young. People take shots at people all the time or say things about people all the time. He has been in this league long enough. He is just going to go play.

Q. Have you seen him grow this year? Have you seen him grow that way this year? He said early in the season fans were picking on him so much that it did affect him, and he made a decision in December that: I'm done letting any of this other stuff bother me and control what I can control basically.
COACH BROWN: I wish I could say yes, but to me he's just been the same. Yeah, he's been the same the whole time.

Q. Do you have an update on Iguodala?
COACH BROWN: Yeah, he didn't practice. Ray, what's Andre's status?

RAYMOND RIDDER: Questionable for tomorrow.

Q. What about Steph? Anything with his hand?
COACH BROWN: No, he's good to go.

Q. Did he practice today?
COACH BROWN: No.

Q. Did that MRI on Andre tell you guys anything more? Did you get the results?
COACH BROWN: Did we get the results back from the MRI?

RAYMOND RIDDER: We did not get the results yet. When we get them, we will share them.

Q. Do you think the narrative of questioning Zaza's integrity as a player has kind of taken away from the 20-point halftime comeback you guys mounted yesterday? Does it take anything away from that?
COACH BROWN: I don't know. I don't know. I mean --

Q. It seems no one's talking about that. They're all talking about what happened to Kawhi led to that comeback.
COACH BROWN: We have no control over what people talk about. We're really not concerned about that. We're just getting ready for Game 2.

Q. You guys made so much of taking care of every possession, and the offensive rebounding, all week long, and were a little bit what seemed to be careless at times. How do you make that adjustment in a hurry to clean up some of those things?
COACH BROWN: We feel like we can play better, just like I'm sure they do. There were a lot of possessions that we could have done things differently, especially with us talking about them going into the game. Watching film today. We really didn't practice much. We stretched and warmed up and went through some offensive sets. Trying to do a little bit of clean-up. Hopefully it will help us pay attention to detail a little more tomorrow night and come out and not get behind by 20 like we have every game against these guys.

Q. You say that Zaza is mature and you feel like he can handle this. But at some point do you say something to him about don't let it get inside your head? Maybe you guys go down to San Antonio and the crowd becomes a factor?
COACH BROWN: I haven't thought about that. But I haven't said anything to him. Obviously, as a team, we've talked about what Pop said. But I didn't say don't let it get in your head. We feel like he's a big boy and he can handle it.

Q. A lot of guys talk about how significant it was to hear from Steve [Kerr] at halftime. Obviously he's been really involved in messaging throughout the playoffs. But having him be more visible in this series, what effect do you think that is having?
COACH BROWN: It's great. He was visible in the Portland series. The only series he wasn't visible in was Utah. But he was visible in the first series. He is visible now. The more he can be around, the more he can address the team, the more he can participate in practice and film sessions, we love it. He's our head coach. He's our leader. We're in this position predominately because of him.

Q. Is he stepping up his participation, like today?
COACH BROWN: He did a lot today. He participated in the film session. Again, we really didn't practice, but he participated in a little bit of practice that we had.

Q. Is it the kind of thing where he's the head coach and he can come in wherever he wants, or do you think he's trying to be careful about picking his moments?
COACH BROWN: No, no, no. This is his team. He's the head coach. I'm an assistant coach. I'm Mike Brown, Warriors assistant coach. He jumps in when he wants to. Yeah, no doubt.

Q. Stylistically, how do you guys blend? He's a surfer, golfer, whatever. You ride motorcycles. How do your personalities mesh as you're sort of two voices in the room now?
COACH BROWN: He doesn't dress as nice and dresses sloppier. I dress nice and I try to be clean [laughing]. A little frumpy, and hopefully a little put-together.

Q. Who sleeps in the office more? I remember you used to do that in L.A. a lot.
COACH BROWN: Yeah, I lived that far, so it was easy for me, especially after games, to watch the game film there and then shoot over to practice. I don't know if he's ever done that (laughing).

Q. You guys got [Matt] Barnes in the rotation even before Andre was out. What was the thinking there, and do you imagine if Andre misses some time, Barnes is going to be pretty significant?
COACH BROWN: It's just like San Antonio. San Antonio is extremely deep. Pop has given those guys an opportunity the entire year to play. So when they're missing certain guys, guys step up. That's the way Steve has been with this team. Steve gives everybody an opportunity. He feels comfortable with whoever is on the floor. So it could be Matt, it could be Ian [Clark] playing more. We talked about Pat McCaw, who started for us in the past when KD was out.

So we feel like the team is deep. Guys have had experience, and we have a lot of different options. One of the reasons why we kind of wanted to get Matt out there a little bit again is Kawhi is a tough player, obviously, on both ends of the floor. He's big, and having a guy like Matt, who is a veteran and he's guarded him a lot of times and all that other stuff, we felt it would be to our benefit to have him ready to go just in case we needed to throw him out there against Kawhi from time to time.

Q. How do you get Klay going?
COACH BROWN: His stat line offensively obviously wasn't what most people would expect, nor what he expected. I'm telling you, when you go back and you watch that tape defensively, he was a monster. I mean, he was really -- not good, he was really good for us defensively.

You don't stop anybody in the NBA. But one of the keys to their team is Patty Mills, and he guarded Patty Mills most of the night. They're like 40-4 when Patty Mills scores more than 10 points. He's an emphasis for us, obviously, going into this series.

There were a lot of things that we didn't do well -- the rebounding and some of the other things like that. But one of the things that happened, and knock on wood, hopefully it continues, is Klay was locked in on his defensive assignment and he did about as good a job as we could have asked him to. The shooting part is going to come. We're not worried about that. But the other stuff he brought to the table was very exciting for us.

Q. When you said you addressed the team about Pop's comments, how did you sort of go about that? Just presenting here's what he said and let's move forward?
COACH BROWN: Yeah.

Q. Does it bother you, the term "dirty"? It implies intent. It's something that when players get labeled that way, especially by a respected coach like Popovich, it's hard to shake.
COACH BROWN: I've been called a lot of names (laughing). It's part of this business. You're in the public eye and people are going to have opinions. Pop has his opinion. We just move forward.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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