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NBA FINALS: HEAT v SPURS


June 14, 2014


Dwyane Wade


SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day

Q.  The last couple of days, how have you mentally tried to refresh and reenergize after a tough Game 4?
DWYANE WADE:  Oh, I mean, having two days in between, I think what we do as players is the night after the game, you replay everything in your mind over and over again.  You feel like crap.  You wake up feeling the same way.  There is some point in the day of that day that you've got to start moving on.  You've got to start mentally preparing yourself for what you can do better the next opportunity.
So that's all I did with myself.  Laid down Friday, just smelled the gym a little bit by myself, just in there.  Saturday you come in and you prepare with your team, with your group.  You get a game plan together for what you feel is a game plan that can win a ballgame.

Q.  Besides shots not going down, was there anything in reflection that you thought went wrong for you in Game 4?
DWYANE WADE:  Individually?

Q.  Yeah.
DWYANE WADE:  Well, we always point at offensively.  Obviously, defensively, they tore us apart again.  We're a team that we all rely on each other on the defensive end of the floor, and they got a lot of things defensively against us.  Offensively, obviously it's probably our poorest offensive game.  Myself, I was 3 for 13.  That doesn't happen to me often.  I'm a very high‑percentage shooter.
Whenever something is that way, there is always something that's pointed out.  There is nothing wrong.  I got quality shots, I missed them.  For whatever reason.  They played good defense on some, some I missed.  But that's the nature of the game.
As I said earlier, it's a hit or miss league, and when you miss it you start pointing at everything.  It has nothing to do with that.  We've got to play better as a team on both ends of the floor, and then your shots will become a little easier.  Defensively you play better, and some of those shots become a little easier.  So it starts on that end for us.

Q.  Do you draw at all on that first championship that you won where you had to come back?  I know you've had a lot of experiences since, but being in a spot like this now?
DWYANE WADE:  I've thought about it.  You think about everything when you're down 3‑1.  You think about all the times that you've been down in the series, and obviously 3‑1 is different than 2‑1 or 3‑2, but, yeah, we were down 2‑0 and down 13 in Game 3 and won four in a row.  You think about all of those things.  You have to pull from your experiences and know where you came from to know where you're trying to go.  So no question.

Q.  You said you went to the gym by yourself.  Was that specifically to work on something?  Beyond that, you said everybody is thinking about what they can do better.  When you think of yourself, what can you do better?
DWYANE WADE:  Well, yeah, it was just to touch, feel the ball, and wonder why I missed so many floaters.  I'm high percentage around the basket, so I don't like missing those shots.
Just to go in there a little bit and have your moments to yourself.  I do it often, especially when I'm ‑‑ offensively when I don't make the shots I want to make or do the things I want to do.
But, I mean, when you come out of a game, two games like we had in Miami, obviously, individually none of us did enough.  We're not going to point fingers at offensive, defensive assignment that was missed.  We didn't do enough.  For us to be successful in a series like we want to be, we have to have more of a collective effort as a group.
Like I said, everything we do is on a string.  We help each other offensively, we help each other defensively, and that's our game.  We haven't done it enough.

Q.  When you look at the big picture, what needs to be corrected after the last two games?  Is it a massive list?
DWYANE WADE:  I mean, when we lose the way we did, it looks massive.  But when you're out there playing the game, it's not that massive.  It's a few.  Obviously, you always come in with a few adjustments.  I think at this point in the series, we have to do a better job of taking away their strengths individually‑‑ individual strengths, because at this time there is nothing that you are going to see that you haven't seen going into Game 5.
So it looks massive.  It's a big list that you guys can play, but when we get on the basketball court, it's still basketball.  And we're a very confident team and highly capable team.  We've just got to go out there and put together a good game.  We haven't played one since Game 2, and that's not like us.  So that's our only focus is to see how we're going to come out, how we're going to attack the game, how we're going to approach the game and put ourselves in position on the road to win a ballgame.

Q.  How do you feel physically right now?  Do you agree that you were laboring a little bit out there towards the end of Game 4?
DWYANE WADE:  No, man.  It's like I said, when you shoot 3 for 13, they can point at anything.  I'm fine.  Way better than I've been in a long time.  There is nothing I point out at all.  Last year I had one leg and did all right.  So I'm totally fine, man.  I didn't play well in Game 4.  Has nothing to do with my health at all.

Q.  I was going to ask the same question, so this may not even be relevant.  Does two days off make a difference physically at this stage of the season?
DWYANE WADE:  No, no, not at all.  It's June 15th.  Ain't it the 15th?  We've been playing forever.  No days off help at all at this time.  But no one's complaining.  No one's in our locker room complaining about it.  We're happy to be in this position.  We're happy to be playing this late in the season as we have been the last few years.
So not at all, man.  We've got to come in here like we did earlier today.  We got better.  We're going to come in tomorrow, shootaround, get better.  We're going to try to win a ballgame.  We're going to try to keep this series alive.

Q.  How much has the point guard play held you back in this series and do you have reason to believe that that could change tomorrow?
DWYANE WADE:  I have very good reason that everything could change.  As I continue to say throughout the season, it's a game‑to‑game thing, man.  It's momentum.  Whatever the case you may say, it's all game to game.
None of us have played well enough.  We're not singling out anybody on our team.  We as a team, the Miami Heat, we haven't played well enough.  You know, we win together, we lose together.  We've lost three games together, and we've won one collectively.  So we all need to play better.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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