NBA FINALS: CELTICS VS. WARRIORS

June 5, 2022

Derrick White

Boston Celtics

Game 2: Postgame

Warriors 107, Celtics 88

Q. You guys spent a lot of Saturday talking to us about the need for a better third quarter, but yet obviously it happened again. How frustrating is it to know going in that you have to be better in the third quarter but to watch them do that and allow that to happen?

DERRICK WHITE: Yeah, it's definitely frustrating. I mean, we’ve talk about it pretty much the whole postseason. It's easy to talk about, but we've got to go out there and change something. That was a big quarter for them, and really a quarter that put us away.

Q. You talked about how this has happened throughout the postseason, the issues with third quarters here and there. Is this a new set of challenges that you guys are going through right now with the Warriors? Are there any differences between something you haven't seen before, and if not, what can you do in Game 3 to avoid that start to the second half?

DERRICK WHITE: I mean, they did all the stuff that we talked about, stuff that we knew they were going to do going in. We've just got to be ready to go from that second half on.

It's easy to talk about it, but we've got to go there, take it up, each man themselves, and go and do it.

Q. Obviously last game you, Al, Marcus had a lot of success getting threes, getting open threes. Seemed like those were taken away. Ime talked about he thought the penetration wasn't there to kind of open those up, and obviously the turnovers make it tough. What did you see that was taking those looks away that were there last game?

DERRICK WHITE: I mean, they definitely upped their pressure a little bit, closed out a little more aggressive to each of us. We've just got to make the play after that. I think I had a couple times where I was in the paint and I didn't make the right play. Just learn from that, and obviously the turnovers hurt.

Q. Derrick, obviously you guys came here hoping to at least be even and get home court back, which you did. These Playoffs you've been better on the road than at home. What do you have to do to flip that around going home and being able to hold home-court advantage this time?

DERRICK WHITE: All the stuff that we've been talking about. They're a good team on the road. They've played a lot of big road games before. We've just got to be ready to go and learn from these mistakes that we made tonight and grow from them.

Q. They made that big run at the end of the third quarter where Draymond was freelancing and trying to dig in on the ball wherever he could. How did the way that they were swarming the ball take away from how the guys were moving it and how did you figure out how to space around it to help somebody get rid of it?

DERRICK WHITE: Yeah, we kind of know that about Draymond. He's going to try to help them out in any way, a little bit everywhere. Just having proper spacing, player movement, ball movement, just taking care of the ball, be strong with it, not jump the pass, stuff like that. We'll watch the film and we'll be better from it.