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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HEAT v BULLS

May 26, 2011

Erik Spoelstra

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Game Five

Miami Heat 83
Chicago Bulls 80

COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: I would like to start just by congratulating the Chicago Bulls organization for a heck of a season. I think it was a big surprise to a lot of people in the league. That was about as competitive a series as you can imagine. They had our full respect. It's been a tremendous year for them.
This game is a little bit emblematic of a lot of things we've gone through this season. There hasn't been a whole lot that's been normal or traditional. We've had to go through a lot of adversity together, and we had to go through the fire again tonight, where a lot of it, the majority of the game, was not going our way. But this team has built up a lot of resiliency and toughness to be able to still hang in there, rely on our defense, get some stops and our best players made some great plays obviously down the stretch.

Q. Erik, doesn't it seem like really you guys can do whatever you want whenever you want to?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: No, it doesn't. Not when you're in this. Each one of these games, and that's how competitive this series was, it was a possession game. The last four straight games, going down the stretch of every fourth quarter, it's a make here, a miss there, a rebound here, a no rebound there that can change the complexion of this entire series. That was as competitive and hard-hitting a series as any of us have experienced. And a lot of our guys have been through a lot of series. Both teams were defensive-minded and committed to that end of the floor.
But we have some special players that when we needed some big-time plays to save us at the end, they were able to do that.

Q. Erik, a two-part question: First of all, we saw Dwyane having the left shoulder iced before the game. Turner showed it being treated during the game. Is there an injury there? And two, for a player who had nine turnovers midway through the third, to come back with a four-point play, did you think there was still a moment for Dwyane in this game when it looked so glum for him say midway through the third?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Similar to his Game 4 where he struggled, and you have to give Chicago a great teal of credit for their defense, putting bodies in the paint and taking away a lot of normal relief opportunities. But he's got something different, a different make-up inside of him that he's able to rise to the occasion regardless of what's happening during the course of the game. And he's proven that so many times, where he may have struggled for a game or even parts of a game, but when it's winning time, there's really not many players that are better than him in the last two minutes. He made some big-time plays.
As far as the injuries, that's just a competitive series. There's nothing significant, other than the normal bumps and bruises from this really combative series.

Q. No injury --
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Soreness from the contact and the nature of the series. Five games of it. And even the series before was very physical.

Q. Just over 12 minutes to go, you guys are down 12, it looks like the series is going back to Miami. What was the mindset of this team? Obviously you guys would be incredibly comfortable going back home for a Game 6 at home. But what was the mindset on the bench at that time?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: We built up a lot of toughness and resiliency through a lot of things that we've experienced during the regular season. And even during the postseason, a lot of things now don't rattle us. We've built up a lot of confidence in our defense that we can get consecutive stops when we need to. And we've had several of these games, including the regular season, where we finished them out with 12-0, 14-0 runs. And we just continue to remind ourselves in the huddles that there's a lifetime left in the game. We just need to continue to grind. We've done it before. We did it the last game. We did it the last series. And to continue to fight and give ourselves a chance.

Q. Coach, you praised Derrick Rose throughout the whole series. Did you ever expect that you could contain him in fourth quarters in three consecutive games like you were able to do?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: I'm going to have to go back to some of the film, because it doesn't feel like we contained him. He's such a great player. He just keeps on coming at you. He's really improved. Obviously, we did a lot of research with Derrick. He's a special individual. We almost had an opportunity to draft him. But his work ethic really separates him, because his game has come a long way since he was in Memphis. Even his rookie year. He's added so many new elements - his shooting and ability to read the defense.
We've tried to build up habits defensively. Our goal coming into the season was to be the best defensive team in the league. And so we spent a lot of time working on it. I don't think our guys have been given enough credit for that in terms of being a work team, a grind team, a lunch pail team. They are very serious-minded about coming to work and to practice and building those habits on the defensive end.
It's taken the full five-and-a-half months to build those habits, to be able to do that in the playoffs.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: I think a lot of guys were probably tired. And he has to shoulder a bigger responsibility for that team. And that's why we tried to keep as many bodies on him, and change up who was guarding him and also change the schemes constantly during the game just to give him different looks, to keep him a little bit out of rhythm, and obviously LeBron is an MVP himself as a two-way player. He's as gifted as they come.

Q. Erik, you essentially outfinished them in the four games that you won. Is that due basically to the fact you got those three great players?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: You know, we've tried to build those defensive habits to be able to give yourselves a chance to win. And the reality is great players -- there's a history in this game of great players shining in those moments when the game is in the balance. And all three of those guys are special players. That's why we recruited them so hard this summer.
Dwyane we've gotten to know obviously for eight years and has done so many special things on this stage. LeBron has done it as well. And Chris quietly had done it so many times as the franchise player. And so they stepped up big when we needed them.

Q. Erik, how important is a comeback like that confidence-wise heading into the NBA Finals?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Well, sure, you always want to finish off on a good note. Once we get past this, it will be a totally new challenge, and we'll have to probably forget a lot about what's happened here, because the keys will change. It's a different challenge. Our confidence has been building. It's quite well documented during the regular season we struggled in close games. And the reality is we had to go through a process.
We've been saying that since the beginning of the year, that we had a team of nine new players. A lot of new components. We're trying to build a team philosophy, build up a defensive system. And then work on building a half-court system where guys feel comfortable, even though they have slightly different roles.
So we had to go through a lot of adversity, that struggle that we went through March when we lost five straight, all of them close games, where we didn't execute down the stretch and weren't able to close games out, that helped us. As painful as that was, we had to go through that fire together to be able to gain the confidence where we can be successful now in the postseason.

Q. Looking back at this series, any Chicago player, other than Derrick Rose, impress you?
COACH ERIK SPOELSTRA: Yes. It's a tough-minded group. We have a lot of respect for those guys on that team. There's a reason why it was such a competitive physical series. They have physical defensive-minded players. Luol Deng is a great two-way player. You just go down the line. Boozer really started to get it going as the series started to go on. But they're physical guys. Their wing defenders did a heck of a job on Dwyane and LeBron.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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