NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FIRST ROUND: WARRIORS vs KINGS

April 28, 2023

Mike Brown

Media Conference

Sacramento Kings - 118, Golden State Warriors - 99

MIKE BROWN: That was just a good win by our guys. They did fantastic. We've been talking about playing with pace, not just in the full court, but in the half court as well. We've been talking about being physical as best we can without fouling, on both sides, not just defensively, but even offensively, setting screens to get your teammates open, trying to play through contact because they're not going to call a lot of fouls, stuff like that.

So I applaud our guys for continuing to try to play with pace and physicality. The big thing that's hurt us in the past is the second-chance points, and our guys did a great job of trying to put bodies on bodies. They had eight second-chance points to our 18. Our pace, we got to keep running and tonight I thought we got out in transition and we got to our spots and we sprayed the ball. It's no secret what we're trying to do. We're trying to touch the paint and spray the ball. We want them to continue to do what good teams do. If somebody's about to get beat, you got to come help.

So we got to have the discipline to try to make sure that we stay spaced and we find the open guy because they're really good at going vertical at the rim, especially bringing another guy over. So if we can get up 50 threes, great. That's what we're trying to do. But we want the spray threes. A lot of guys stepped up for us, Foxie is Foxie, 28 or 26 and 11, big, big night from him. Keegan with the 12 rebounds. We needed every single one of his rebounds. And then Domas, Domas with nine offensive rebounds. That was huge.

Our bench was really big. You talk about the performance that Malik had. He's been aggressive the whole playoffs and we thought he did a great job of touching the paint and spraying it, but just as importantly, his six rebounds were huge and his ability to get to the free-throw line were huge.

And then obviously Trey was fantastic. He had 10 rebounds himself. We told him, Hey, if you're open, just let that thing go. And then TD. TD was great. He hadn't played much this series. Thought he came in and he did a heck of a job trying to make whoever he had to guard work. So big win by our group today -- or tonight.

Q. What told you to go small and spread it out and how did you see it impact the game?

MIKE BROWN: I got two guys on my staff, they drove me fricking crazy in our last meeting. Robbie Lemons is our analytics coach. He was the one that kept beating my fricking head in to do this, do this, do this, and Luke Loucks. We were all on board with it, but those two guys were probably the most adamant, and not necessarily with Trey. We all felt we wanted to go to Trey, but just mainly just, hey, let's just keep shooters on the floor, touch the paint, and spray it.

We felt that Looney's been kicking our behind, so it's not like going to Trey or going to somebody else from time to time would hurt us on the glass because he's been already doing work.

I give my entire coaching staff a lot of credit, but Robbie Lemons, our analytics coach, and Luke Loucks, he's our fourth assistant, they're the two that really got on my nerves about it.

Q. With Keegan, did you come into the game thinking that you might play him somewhere around 45 minutes? And just how impressed are you with his ability to shake off -- he had a really good start offensively and then kind of quieted down again, but he stayed in the game and kind mentally stayed in the game tonight.

MIKE BROWN: Yeah, he had 12 rebounds. That was huge. We need him to be physical. I mean, I don't know if he -- you took a big charge for us. I think Trey took a big charge. So the physicality, the ability to come over and trap the box and sacrifice your body was huge, and Keegan was a big part of that.

At the end of the day, they got to guard 'em because if you go to help and you don't get to him quick enough, he going to make that shot. So I came in consciously knowing that, you know what? I'm going to live with Keegan and whatever happens, happens because at the end of the day, worst case scenario, this is an invaluable experience for him.

Q. De'Aaron called this sort of a perfect game for you guys and you go down the list with points in the paint, second-chance points, offensive rebounds, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think this is the best overall floor game that you've gotten from your guys this season?

MIKE BROWN: Yeah, this is a really good game by our guys. They competed. Not only that, we've been telling 'em all series, hey, touch the paint, touch the paint, touch the paint, and look to spray it, get off it. But do it by coming to a two-foot jump stop, because Draymond's so good on the back side, Loon's so good on back side, and they all -- Klay, they all have active hands, and so they're swiping down at the ball.

I told our guys, You know what? We're not getting the call. This is like a UFC championship fight. In the UFC, if you're the challenger and you're fighting a champion, you can't out-point 'em, you can't out-decision 'em, you got to go take it from 'em, and we can't be soft with the ball and think because we got hit on the arm, that they're going to call it because we're putting the decision in the officials' hands and it ain't going to go our way, for sure.

Q. To have Game 7 in your building, how much does that mean to this team confidence-wise to able to actually win the series?

MIKE BROWN: That's part of the reason why we bust our behind all year, you know, trying to get as good of a record as you can during the regular season. Hopefully it will help benefit you in situations like this. We're excited, we're going to go back home for Game 7, we're going to play in front of our fans, and our fans are going to be excited, and the town and the organization definitely deserve this. Now we just got to go out there and try to get it done.

Q. You guys held Golden State to 38 points in the paint on 18-45 and last game it was 60 for them on borderline 70 percent from the field. What was the difference there and how essential was that tonight?

MIKE BROWN: They have been killing us in the pocket, you know, they have been killing us in the pocket the whole series. They got ahead, got a lot of back doors and stuff like that. We just said we're going to try to take that away as best we can.

And I give Domas a lot of credit because it started with him, and then Trey a lot of credit too. We tried as best we can to do it, and our guys did a fantastic job executing the game plan with the changes we made and it was part of the reason why we got the win.

Q. This has been the most even series of the playoffs thus far. It's only fitting that it goes to Game 7. What do you guys need to do at home to win it?

MIKE BROWN: We got to play with physicality on both ends of the floor. I don't have any magic dust, you know. We got to play with physicality offensively, defensively. We got to be strong with the ball offensively, we got to make sure that they feel us defensively, we got to box out, and then we got to get out and run, we got to play fast, not just in the full court, but in the half court as well. We got to have a pace about us that is going to help create some separation so we can get some looks, and all of us, from Domas on down, we need to let it fly. If you're open, I don't care, let that thing go.

Q. You know this Golden State team inside and out and you also know the history and you know how they have been in Game 7s. What do you -- what kind of energy and what kind of game do you guys need to beat them in a Game 7?

MIKE BROWN: We're going to have to play at our best. Again, they're the champions. We're going to have to play at an elite level for 48 minutes against these guys because they're going to bring it, trust me. They're going to absolutely fricking bring it from the beginning to the end of the game because both teams know that their backs are against the wall.

They have been through it, they have had the experience of figuring it out, and so we're going to have to come and play at a high level doing all the things that I've been talking about.

Q. De'Aaron and Malik both mentioned that they felt like maybe the Warriors legs were a little tired tonight. There was one game between this and the last game and there's one game between now and Sunday. Is that part of the thinking in going small and demanding that you guys continue to push the pace? Are you hoping that that maybe creates an advantage for you at the end of this series?

MIKE BROWN: No. We just felt going small -- they're good. Like I said, we just felt going small with the guards we have, we would be able to get downhill and they can play-make, and Trey gave us that ability, because the reality it of it is, obviously they switch Loon on to Foxie, Foxie's got to go make a play against Loon. If Loon wants to be down the floor, Trey's got to pick and pop and shoot it. I don't care if he goes 0-10, he's got to shoot the ball.

So for us, you know, we do want to play as quick as we can. If we can play tomorrow, we'd play tomorrow. But we want to keep pushing the ball. Not just because it's the Warriors. I mean, that's how we played all year. We played fast all year. In order to beat teams in the playoffs, all these teams are great, we got to even try to find a way to play faster while trying to play some defense too.

Q. With Kevin, I mean, with Keegan's early start and then Kevin getting his shots to fall finally later in the game, it seemed like the first time fans watching got to see both your best shooters do their thing in the same game. How important will that be in Game 7 for both of those guys to get going?

MIKE BROWN: It's going to -- well more than get going, they both got to shoot when they're open. So that's the first thing. Then on top of that they can't hesitate. On top of that, I mean, obviously, the more that they get going that's the less pressure it's on Fox and Domas to try to have to score. Because they're going to pay a lot of attention to Fox, they're paying a lot of attention to Malik. Those guys are doing a great job of getting downhill and so they're going to have some opportunities to get some spray threes and so, yeah, to help us out if they can make 'em, but more than make 'em they got to make sure they take 'em, but we got to make sure we find 'em too.

Q. Speaking of Kevin, he seemed relieved to finally get some of the shots to go. You stuck with him and let him kind of work his way through this over the course of this series. How, not necessarily relieved, but how satisfying is it for you to finally see him get a couple big buckets, important buckets especially there at the end of the game?

MIKE BROWN: Like I said, he's just got to keep shooting the ball. We have to keep trying to find ways to get him involved. Because he's a tireless worker offensively and his movement creates a lot of separation and gravity to get other guys open. So, you know, obviously making shots, you feel good about that. But the biggest thing that I like is he hadn't shot it well, but he's continued to take 'em. Like he didn't hesitate tonight. And our guys continued to try to find him. So you give the group a lot of credit, but you give him more credit than anything else because it's a confidence level you have to have in order to be in his position and he definitely showed that tonight.

Q. It's clear listening to your players that they have been drilled on the game plan and it's clear that they executed it tonight. That's just one side of a game like this. How did you feel about how they responded emotionally in what could have been a closeout game?

MIKE BROWN: It's great. We obviously as a group haven't been through stuff like this yet. So at the end of the day every experience that we go through during this playoff run, good and bad, it's a fantastic, fantastic learning experience for us. So, again, I applaud our guys with the way they handled everything, especially the outside noise. We've been a group that had to listen to the outside noise all throughout the course of the year. Because, I mean, every sports media person out there -- and I would do the same thing if I was in your guys' shoes -- but, you know, they don't give us a chance. Which is fine. Like I said, we got to go earn it. Tonight I thought our guys did a good job earning it.

But the job's not done. So we got to see how we're going to respond in a Game 7 for the first time as a group.

Q. You talk about wanting to play quicker. Can you play any quicker than did to start the game tonight? Seemed like Sabonis was a man on fire to start the game. You guys really got going. Malik mentioned you guys had really talked about getting off to a really quick start today.

MIKE BROWN: Yeah, it's a long game. So I don't really -- I mean, obviously you want to, if you can be up at any time you want to be up. I would take that any day of the week. But when I'm talking about playing faster I'm talking about throughout the whole course of the game. Like our pace, we want to go, we want to go, we want to go every single time if we can. And then in the half court when we're making our cuts and our reads and all that it's got to be boom, right now, right now, with a sense of urgency. And if we can do that for as close to 48 minutes as possible we feel like we're going to generate some good looks. And then at the end of the day you just hope the looks go in.

Q. You had that overtime win in Minnesota. I think Domas fouled out late and then you went to Trey at the 5. And you sort of talked about it afterward as being able to keep that in your back pocket. It sounds like you were a little bit reluctant even in this situation to pull it out. Why the reluctance on your part and what counter adjustments could you expect for Game 7 from Steve?

MIKE BROWN: So I said that -- and I was great with Trey. I talked to Jordy about the Trey thing as soon as we lost Game 5. We just said, Hey, I just told Jordy, Hey, I'm going to spread it out. But putting TD on the floor, even extending Kevin's minutes, you know, that's what I'm talking about that Robbie and Luke beat over my head. So, but the Trey thing, Jordan and I had talked about that right after our Game 5 loss possibly happening. We didn't know. At the end of the day we still need to watch the film and all that other stuff. But the more we watched it, the more we talked as a group, that's the more we liked the idea. And my reluctance was Davion's done a great job, he's busted his behind and obviously he was the one that whose minutes got cut in order to keep Kevin on the floor longer. Not only Davion, even HB. Those guys, their minutes were cut to keep, to bring TD and play him more. To keep Keegan out there longer. To play Trey, you know, and to keep Kevin out there longer. So again, that was, that more so was Robbie and Luke's suggestion that I was a little hesitant initially, but the more they beat it over my head I relented, obviously.