|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA FINALS: SPURS v HEATJune 6, 2013LeBron JamesMIAMI, FLORIDA: Game One San Antonio Spurs - 92 Q.  LeBron, can you take us through Tony's last play and that final possession. LeBRON JAMES: It was tough. You're going to make me go back to that play? Tony did everything wrong and did everything right in the same possession. He stumbled two or three times, he fell over, and when he fell over, I was like, okay, I'm going to have to tie this ball up. He got up and went under my arm. I got a great contest, and he even double‑pumped it and barely got it off. That was the longest 24 seconds that I've been a part of. Q. 2‑3‑2 format is always tough when you lose one of those first two at home. You guys experienced that a couple of years ago. How does that change your mindset as you go forward? LeBRON JAMES: It is what it is. It's a seven‑game series. You know, we got to see ways we can get better for Game 2. We can only focus on the next game. That's what it's about. Q. What did the Spurs do to you defensively? Did they try to force you to become a distributor? LeBRON JAMES: Well, yeah. They did a good job of putting two guys on the ball. When I got the ball, they kind of shrunk the floor and set a guy at the elbow and dared me to pass the ball. I know my guys will be there to knock those shots down the next game. We had some really good looks, especially in the third quarter. Rio had some very good looks. It just didn't go down. They did a good job tonight. Q. LeBron, I guess along the same lines, it looked like in the fourth quarter you weren't getting a whole lot of help. Did it seem that way? LeBRON JAMES: We had our chances to win. We go into the fourth quarter with a three‑point lead. So we had our chances. We had five turnovers in the fourth. We gave them some offensive rebounds in the fourth as well. And Tim Duncan had one putback; Kawhi Leonard had another one. We can't allow that. Q. LeBron, you guys obviously made the adjustment. You ended up on Tony Parker in the crunchtime situation. You always talk about how you guys present a pick‑your‑poison type situation to other teams. Is this a team that you guys have to look at it that way? LeBRON JAMES: Yeah, against this team you can't make many mistakes. You look at statistics, you know, we put in ourselves in position to win. They shot 31%. We outrebounded them by 9. We had more assists. But we turned the ball over five times in the fourth. I was looking at the stat sheet. It says they had 21 second‑chance points. I don't really understand how is that possible with only six offensive rebounds. I'm very good at math, and the only way you can get a second‑chance point is if you get off a rebound. Am I correct? Even if you hit a three, six offensive rebounds, that's still 18 points. I don't understand how that works. But we had chances. That's kind of weird. I don't understand this. Am I right or am I wrong? Am I right? Okay. It's crazy. Q. LeBron, you talked yesterday about how you have a much better team than in 2007 when you faced the Spurs. How do the Spurs compare? Do they look like the same old Spurs even though their Big Three are six years older or what? LeBRON JAMES: The Spurs are the Spurs. They're going to put you in positions where you feel uncomfortable offensively and defensively. And every time you make a mistake, they're going to capitalize on it. Q. LeBron, I asked Erik about you and Dwyane sitting to start the fourth. He said both of you needed a minute. Do you go to him or did he go to you? LeBRON JAMES: I told him I needed one. At that point I had played the whole third. I had been accustomed to being able to start the fourth. But the third quarter was so‑‑ I was in the paint, defensive rebounding, I was closing out Kawhi Leonard on shooters. It took all in the tank from me in the third quarter. So I needed a little breather. Q. LeBron, when Dwyane came in, he said that the Heat looked a little bit like a fatigued team that had played a seven‑game series in the fourth quarter. Was that in part the difference in this game tonight? LeBRON JAMES: The fourth quarter was the difference. I can see it on a few of our guys' faces. Felt a little fatigued, still a little banged up from that seven‑game series. They looked like they were rested in the fourth quarter. They took advantage of that. We had some mental mistakes, and we played some really good basketball. But in the closing quarter we had some mental mistakes. And it's only a couple of teams you can't have mistakes against, especially in the fourth. And San Antonio is definitely the number one team. Q. LeBron, you guys often talk about how in these three years together you have seen and experienced absolutely everything at this point. Do you rely on that right now to get through the next couple of days and not let this one loss overshadow what could be coming up? LeBRON JAMES: It's the first team to four. They came in and beat us on our own floor in Game 1. I know they're going to be hungry to try to get two. So we have to be able to combat that and come back with a Game 2 plan that's better than Game 1 and even the series. Q. LeBron, you had 18 points on 16 field‑goal attempts. How do you get that offensive efficiency up? LeBRON JAMES: I mean, I missed some shots. I missed some really good looks. As far as being efficient, I'm not worried about that. I also had 18 rebounds and 10 assists as well. So you know, I'm not too much worried about what I do as far as scoring. Q. LeBron, three times before this loss your team went down 1‑0 in a series, and in all of those times you won. In fact, you've won every game in the series after that point. When you think back to Oklahoma City last year and Chicago this year, do you remember the team changing in intensity and focus in any way? Why has that happened in the past and can it happen this year? LeBRON JAMES: I think one thing about our team we've gotten better as the series went on. We hate to lose before we start to get a little edge, but that's what happens. We'll see if we can continue to repeat what we've been doing in the series, being down, and come back on Sunday with a‑‑ like I say, with a better game plan, you know, and try to even the series. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|