NBA FINALS: CELTICS VS. WARRIORS

June 4, 2022

Andre Iguodala

Golden State Warriors

Practice Day

Q. Andre, just want to know how you're feeling after your first game back in a few weeks, and as kind of one of the veteran leaders on the team, kind of how did you speak to them about handling the Game 1 loss and bouncing back?

ANDRE IGUODALA: I mean, we've just been playing the game for a pretty long period of time, and I've got a lot of experience with those guys. So it just feels like you didn't walk for a week, but you know how to walk. So they make the game easier for me with Steph, Draymond, Klay out there.

So just knowing my skill set and how to be valuable and a weapon to the team, and just got to continue to keep being a threat and being in a position of being a threat to the defense and then making sure that you're being sharp on the defensive end with a lot of the weapons that they have.

I think that's where experience kicks in where it's not the shock coming back from a little bit of a layoff.

Q. Tatum had 13 assists, looking back at the film, how important was that, and how do you hope to mitigate that?

ANDRE IGUODALA: He's becoming the face of the league and up-and-coming young talent, and we know how much pressure we try to put on those guys to kind of take the mantle of who's going to be the forefront of the next generation, and his name's there, as well deserved and it should be. He didn't shoot the ball well, but he made sure that he was effective in other ways. That just shows kind of the ultra-maturity of -- what is he, 23? He's 24. Even that, he's very young.

So understanding you're going to have some off nights in the Finals and just the way he adjusted, you've got to tip your hat, especially to a guy like him with all that coming with what's in the fold for his career.

Q. Andre, I think you said on your podcast that the if things you were dealing with physically were in the regular season, you wouldn't be playing, but now that it's the postseason, you would play. Am I characterizing that correctly?

ANDRE IGUODALA: For sure.

Q. Just in your own words, why is the prize of a championship so great that you'll put your body on the line?

ANDRE IGUODALA: That's a good question. It's really for guys that are playing with -- different reasons. Some guys may not understand the magnitude of it all, and it's not their fault. It's just it's their first time, and you're trying to process everything that comes with being in the Finals. For other guys they understand this doesn't happen so often, and I think what's happened with our group -- or with the group, you name it. I spoke about it before Game 1.

I think the overall sentiment for those three guys after we won the first one was that they were going to continue to be this dominant this long. I think we take it for granted because we're so close to our athletes now. We're so close to them in social media, we start to forget and take for granted how -- we should appreciate them a lot more. It's a really long run to go to the Finals, this group, six out of eight or nine years, whatever it is, doesn't happen every day. Only the greats, the real greats do it.

LeBron is the only one around our era that's been able to have the same effect in terms of winning and getting this far. We made it look normal to where people have taken it for granted or can take certain shots at us, whereas in previous generations throughout sports in general, people understood how tough it really was. Now there's just so much access, we think it's kind of like a walk in the park, like hey let's go down and play basketball in the Finals again, where it's just a really tough road.

Understanding the importance of each chance you get, you want to try to maximize it because you don't want to look back and think you let one get away. That's the sacrifice of playing through certain things.

Q. Looking back at that fourth quarter in Game 1, what went wrong for you guys, and how do you, moving forward, prevent that from happening again? What sort of adjustments do you need to make with this team?

ANDRE IGUODALA: It's a chess game. They did a really good job with their adjustments, and they did a really good job with doing what the game says. So much goes into a highlight play that we forget about the small nuances, gamesmanship, the -- everything's -- Isiah Thomas said it on my podcast. We play in tenths of seconds, not in seconds or minutes. The fine, minute things, even the way you close out, even the way you attack the defense, or your setup of personnel within a play and making sure that everyone's a weapon, and they did a really good job of getting their guys in possession to be threats.

When the ball swings to them, you do what you do. The game says shoot, you shoot. The game says pass, you pass. The game says cut, you cut. They did a good job with that, well-oiled machine, well coached.

I'm enjoying this Finals already because it's two high-level teams playing the game the right way, and it's playing with a high-level skill set as well. So you've got the athleticism, you've got the high talent, and you've got a great skill set. Just a great matchup. I think we're going to come up with a very deserved winner at The Finals this year.

Q. You can see you and Jordan at practice together a lot, kind of, I guess, he was just referring to you like as his vet. What's the main message with him right now, and where have you seen him grow most mentally throughout the season?

ANDRE IGUODALA: Just we're here now, and everyone wants to play well. Everyone wants to play at a high level. They're making adjustments. We're making adjustments. Just making sure we're on the same page. Part of being a great player is not just how you play, but how you help others play to their best ability. So we were just talking about certain situations and how we can mitigate some things that may be thrown at us and how we can adjust to different looks they may throw at us.

Then the same thing on the other end defensively as well. I think that just shows a guy who really wants to excel, wants to play well. He's watching a lot of film, and he's trying to learn as much as he can. So you love to see that from a young guy.

Q. Andre, for your team, does the collective intelligence that you guys have as a group, basketball intelligence and otherwise, kind of set you guys up well for that chess game? You see what they do and figure out how to adjust to it both between games and in the game to kind of balance out the things that they're trying to throw at you?

ANDRE IGUODALA: Well, when we first started making the Finals, the first few runs, we were the young team, seeing if we could adjust, seeing how we in-game adjust as well as between games. You hear some sentiments with them now is that they're the younger team, how do they adjust within the game with the background of the coaching staff and with the Spurs, having a great understanding and making runs.

I think they're doing a good job of buying into everything Coach Ime is saying to them. But we've had a lot of experience as well. You've seen our experience put us in a good position Game 1, and you've seen how they're young and they're hungry, and they've made adjustments to do what they needed to do to take the game in Game 1. It's going to be a good chess match, and I'm looking forward to it.