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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: THUNDER v SPURSMay 30, 2014Derek FisherOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: Practice Day Q.  As Reggie and Kevin pointed out, physicality and toughness are things you're going to need in Game 6. Is that the most important thing in your mind, or is there something else you guys are going to need to do? DEREK FISHER: No, I mean, that's at the top of the list for sure. You know, which starts with a mindset and with the right mental approach to the game. But yeah, defense is for sure at the top of the list as something we've talked about all year, and we have to have it tomorrow. Q. Do you think it's been more of an adjustment over the course of the series than usual series in terms of lineup changes, shifts during games and stuff like that? DEREK FISHER: I'm not sure if more necessarily, but you know, I think in the playoffs that's what it's about. You know, the teams that are able to best make adjustments from quarter to quarter, half to half, game to game are generally the ones that are finding the success. It's not always just when you win or lose, either, that you have to make adjustments, and so we obviously lost the last game, but that doesn't mean that we have to make 100 adjustments and they only have to make one. I think both teams are going to still make some adjustments and be prepared to do whatever is necessary to win the game. Q. Tim Duncan says this is the craziest series they've been a part of. How does this one stand out to you? DEREK FISHER: I mean, it's close. To think about the variation in scores in games and the two different buildings, especially with two really good teams. I think there have been some times in series where you have a top seed versus a lower seed and maybe a team takes one for granted. There's a lopsided game here or there. But just about every game in this series so far has been 20 and 30‑point leads by each team. That's normally not what you see when you see two of the best teams in the league. You know, for us tomorrow, we could care less what the score is. We just want to have a chance to win the game and take advantage of this opportunity on our home court to get a win and extend the series. Q. To follow that up, have you thought about how crazy this whole postseason has been for you guys, the four straight overtimes, four‑point plays, Zach Randolph's suspension? There have been a million things that have happened. You've seen everything there has been to see in the postseason. Is this about as weird as it's been? DEREK FISHER: I don't know if weird is the word. I think it's par for the course as far as I'm concerned. I think I've mentioned this several times during the playoffs this year, that there's no script for this. You can try to set expectations and everybody can sit around and try and predict what's going to happen and which team is going to come out on top, and it's just impossible. That's what makes sports sports and why people are so excited about either being there or watching it, because you never know what's going to happen. So I'm not overly surprised by how wild it's been. That's the way it's supposed to be, and that's why you see grown men cry at the end of June when you get a chance to raise that trophy up, because of all those wild and crazy moments. Q. Going into an elimination game, what are the important qualities that this team has to embrace in this situation, in this moment? DEREK FISHER: Well, I mean, we've been in this situation twice already in this postseason. You know, the Spurs have, as well, in Game 7 against the Mavericks. And so I think it's just important to focus on the fact that it's still a 48‑minute basketball game, and you can't bring the entirety of the world is going to end if you lose and you're the best team in basketball if you win and all of the external things that take away your focus from the very small and minute details you need to concentrate on to win the game. And so I think that's important for our team going into tomorrow night is we still go into it with a clear mind about how to win a basketball game and not bring all the extra baggage into it that we'll leave for you guys to debate and talk about and kind of decide on. But we just have to focus on the little details that come with trying to win basketball games. Q. What are you expecting out of Kevin? I know you've played with MVPs in the past and you know the pressure when you have that trophy. DEREK FISHER: Just everything that he has. I mean, that's all we can ask of him or anybody on our team. You know, I've seen the best of the best not perform well statistically in the biggest games of the year, but their passion, their effort, just their desire to win was higher than everybody else's, and so Kevin doesn't have to show up tomorrow and score 40 points and have MVP numbers against them, but we need everybody to show up tomorrow just with the desire to win that is stronger than our opponents'. We won't necessarily have to ask for anything else but that. Q. Can it help that you guys are 2‑0 in elimination games? Anything you take from that as a team? DEREK FISHER: I mean, it doesn't necessarily help us in giving us an advantage tomorrow per se, but I think experience is valuable and can be utilized in the right ways, and so I do think we can have some belief in ourselves that in an elimination game we've come out and‑‑ not played it that way necessarily. I think if you put too much on it you play desperate, you play frantic, you play as though you don't understand you can win. And so I think tomorrow for us, we have to keep that in mind, that regardless of what the series stands at, it's one game, and whatever it is you have to do to just win that one game, don't think about the games before or what can come after, and that's what we have to do to find success tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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