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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS vs CELTICS

May 25, 2018

Brad Stevens

Cleveland, Ohio: Game Six

Cavaliers - 109, Celtics - 99

Q. You guys have been here before. Last year, this year again with Game 7s. What's a Game 7 all about?
BRAD STEVENS: Got to get ready to play. Got to get ready to play at a high level, just like every other game, and then it's win or go home. It's an absolute blast to prepare for as a coach and play in as a player. It'll be a heck of a challenge, playing a really good team with obviously a tremendous individual player who put on a tremendous show tonight.

Q. You got the quarter that you wanted in that first quarter, had a five-point lead. Where did it get away from you?
BRAD STEVENS: I thought our second quarter, we missed some opportunities. But I thought we also just got lax a little bit offensively. When we get lax offensively, we open up transition opportunities for them, and that's a problem. And then, again, LeBron lowered his head and drove the ball at that time. We did a pretty good job toward the end of that quarter on him, but he had already made a few layups and then he gets to feeling good and hits those tougher shots. I was proud of the way that we fought back. We had a chance there to cut it to four on a shot that didn't quite go down. But this group is resilient. We'll be ready to go on Sunday.

Q. Before the series began, I asked you about having LeBron in your path year after year, three out of the last four years. You said it's really Cavs or Celtics, I don't look at it that way. But when he does something like he did tonight, 46 minutes, and then the numbers, does that ever come into your mind, wow, this is a different type of animal that I'm coaching against?
BRAD STEVENS: Does that ever come into our minds? Like, yeah, every time we watch. Every time you're standing out there. Every time you watch him on film. Best player in the game.

Special night tonight and special night in Game 4. I can't say enough good things about him.

Q. Those last two threes by LeBron, just watching those --
BRAD STEVENS: Great defense by [Jayson] Tatum, great shots by LeBron. Hats off. Tremendous. I thought the second was wasn't quite as contested maybe as the first one. The first one, that was ridiculous.

Q. They seemed to really hurt you guys on the offensive glass there, especially at the end of the fourth quarter.
BRAD STEVENS: I thought as we were coming back, the biggest issue was the glass. Other than obviously LeBron. I think we were all obviously consumed with our help, and we didn't either rotate and drop and block out, or we just missed block-outs individually, and they got easy tip-ins.

Q. How did Kevin Love leaving the game with the injury affect you guys as far as your game plan or your defense?
BRAD STEVENS: Maybe more on the other end. We would guard obviously a little bit differently with Kevin in the game, but obviously with the different matchups that they're playing and everything else, when they went small, I thought those guys all reacted very effectively. Jeff Green was great tonight. [Kyle] Korver came in and made some shots and did what he does. George Hill was tremendous. Other guys picked up the slack for him being out.

Q. The other night you said best two out of three to go to the NBA Finals. Now it's one game. What's your message going to be to your players other than that?
BRAD STEVENS: Prepare well and have a great time. Enjoy it.

Q. On a night like this, are you assuming that LeBron is going to go the distance, and if you think he might sit out at any point, are you monitoring that closely to try to make hay --
BRAD STEVENS: He really only sits out usually only end of first, end of third for maybe a minute and a half, two minutes. There's an occasion where he'll sit out the start of the next quarter, but he's playing 42 to 44 minutes anyway in this series. Now, tonight I thought he would go 48. I think it ended up 46. It would have been on pace to go 46:30 because I think he was out for a minute and a half at the end of the third. That's it, before the subs at the very end.

Q. You guys went to Al Horford a lot in the post in the first quarter and they doubled a lot. Were you happy with the way you guys reacted to that, and did you feel like you went to Horford in the post a lot after that first quarter?
BRAD STEVENS: I thought that that was good at times in the first quarter, for sure. I thought our spacing was excellent, the way we moved it out of the double. I thought that the rest of the night when we posted, I didn't think we were as poised coming out of the double. Not necessarily Al, but just our whole five-man alignment in general wasn't as good. But when they're doubling you've got to be ready to be a passer out of there, and Al is a very good passer.

Q. It took Al a while to get going. He was scoreless at halftime. You look at his home-road splits here in the playoffs, at home it's about 19 points a game; on the road it's about 12. Is there anything you guys can do to get him going earlier, particularly on the road, not that that's an issue now with Game 7 at home, but just getting him going?
BRAD STEVENS: It just kind of depends on who you're playing against and how they're playing him.

Obviously they're late switching -- what we call veering -- a lot of pick-and-rolls when he does set them with [Tristan] Thompson. Thompson is tremendous defensively, but one of the things that makes him tremendous is his ability to switch. George Hill is into Al's legs. And right on the catch or on the dribble they're going, so they're doubling. If he's touching the ball and making plays out of the double, then his number of field-goal attempts is going to be less. The question about did we go to him enough, probably a good question, and one that when we review it, we'll look at it and figure out if we need to do more.

Q. Talk about if you would for a moment about the kid from Cleveland who plays for you, Terry Rozier. By how much has he exceeded your hopes, your expectations, what you thought you saw in him, in this postseason? Tonight's game might be the first example of it.
BRAD STEVENS: You know what, I think that our job as coaches is not to set limits on players with our own ceilings we have for them. So he hasn't exceeded it at all. I think we have high expectations for Terry and we think he's terrific and we think he's going to get better and better. But we're not going to set a ceiling on him. He's got a chance to be a very, very good player.

Q. How did Jayson Tatum make it out of that collision with Kevin Love? Do you think that affected him, and did you want him to be more aggressive early?
BRAD STEVENS: Yeah, we were on that one and our trainers were on that one in the huddle right after. Obviously, that was a nasty deal. He felt fine. He'll be just like every other time. We'll continue to talk to him over the next 24 hours to make sure, but every indication is he's fine.

I thought he was good in the second half. I didn't think we did a good enough job of getting him as involved in the first.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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