Steve Kerr, Gui Santos and De’Anthony Melton from postgame after the loss to Detroit. Aside from the fourth quarter absence of one Wardell Stephen Curry due to the same knee soreness that became an issue during a workout before the first game in Minnesota, a lot of trade deadline talk…
00:00 Is that something bothering him, maybe even going into the game a little bit? Looked like it–
00:03 STEVE KERR, POSTGAME: Yeah, it was the knee that kept him out of the game in Minneapolis. And so it’s been nagging him the last week or so.
00:11 Steve, is he gonna get an MRI?
00:12 I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t even talked to Rick (Celebrini).
00:16 What was working there, especially the start of the fourth, but the entire second half seemed like there was just a little more competitive fire or what did you think was the difference in the second half?
00:25 Well, I mean, they got 45 in the first quarter. I mean, they were unstoppable, but we didn’t think they’d shoot that way. We did take care of transition much better in the second half than in the first and made it much more difficult on them to score and I loved the competitive fight of our guys. They really battled, gave us a chance and that’s a hell of a team, obviously, a number one team in the East, athletic and a ton of size and great team. So we just couldn’t quite get over the hump.
01:04 Coach, here. Gui Santos scored in double digits the last three games and seems to be more aggressive attacking the basket. Is something you are asking him to do more since Jimmy’s injury?
01:16 No, I haven’t asked him to do anything. I just think he’s in a good rhythm. He’s feeling good and he’s getting more opportunities to play, but he’s playing really well. He’s very quick, he’s able to get his by his guy and score layups and he had a couple of really nice moves tonight. He’s a lot quicker than people think and he’s a threat from the three point line, smart player. We’re very lucky to have him.
01:45 Steve, what are the challenges any team, this team or any team, faces when you lose a key player and then following that, the front office is trying to find ways to recover from that. When you take the floor, I mean, do you carry that with you? I mean, what are the things you have to kind of work through mentally just to be on your game?
02:01 Yeah, I mean, that’s the job and it’s no fun to see your name in a trade rumor or something, but it’s the job and we talk about that frequently, not all the time, but we mention it. It’s a great job, but it’s also, there’s some difficult aspects and this is one of it.
02:27 Is Gary banged up at all or is just last two games it’s just been your decision?
02:31 No, I just, we’re playing so many guys and it’s really hard to play 12. We played 11 tonight. Once steph went out, I gave Pat the eight minutes and he was great. It’s just more numbers right now. He had struggled a little bit for a few games and I just kind of feel like a reset will help him.
02:55 When you’re playing against a team like Detroit that has so much size, so much physicality inside, how do you look at the balance between going double bigs and trying to match that versus going small and trying to space them out?
03:07 It’s really about combinations for both teams, depending on who they have out there. We might be more comfortable with Draymond at the five. The way they started, we wanted to go double big just to establish some physicality, but when they go Stewart and Duren, that’s quite a bit to handle. And so we tried to mix and match. Gui did a great job at the four and both Al and Draymond played really well. QP did, too, so we just battled as best we could.
03:48 What’d you make of the defensive effort tonight? Got some stops, but towards the end–
03:51 Well, first quarter was pretty rough. I mean, we gave up 24 points in the paint and they were just getting by us and a lot of transition hoops, so after the first quarter, I think the game settled down and we defended much better. Thanks.
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04:09 Gui, what changed between the first quarter and, I guess, the rest of the game? First quarter they get 45 points and it seemed like after that, Coach said the game kind of settled down for you. What changed?
04:19 GUI SANTOS: I think our intensity on the defense. I feel like in the first quarter they were running whatever they want and we pick up the intensity on the defense and we were more in the gaps because they are like a heavy drive team. They will make some shots today too, but we were more in the gaps. We slow down, we don’t turn the ball over and that helps us to get back in the game.
04:44 Gui, over here. How much did you notice that Steph was sort of favoring the knee? And it sounds like it’s not serious, but still, is there a, do you find yourself sort of wincing or flinching a bit when Steph — I mean, given Jimmy’s already out and now Steph’s obviously got an issue?
05:01 So I noticed that Steph was limping a little bit, since the end of the first quarter. So I saw him limping and I remember he did an and-one, but he was just limping before he do the and-one. And I said, man, you tough. You can do that with one leg. You nice.
05:20 Gui, another game where you just come off the bench and provide a lot of energy and a lot of scoring. Is there a secret to that is what do you sort of do to be able to come off the bench that ready?
05:30 Man, for me it’s just the energy, you know? Sometimes, I’m not gonna score a lot of points. Sometimes, like, today’s the day, I don’t think I got a lot of rebounds, but I was there all the rebounds, just like trying to help because I see how hard Draymond was fighting because they got strong dudes under the rim. Draymond was fighting with everybody. I was just there to try to help him to, like, don’t let them get the rebounds, you know? But I think it’s just like the mind to get ready to go there, play with energy. Sometimes, again, game gonna give me some more opportunities to score. Sometimes it’s just gonna — Steph gonna be really, like, hot in the game. You just gotta find him, so depends which game, but I’m always gonna bring the energy, the effort, the hustle, because I think that’s what put me in a good position to help the team better.
06:20 And against like a team like Detroit with a lot of athleticism and size, how do you see — how do you guys sort of attack that on offense?
06:27 I think we gotta play harder because they, what they wanna do is they want to take us off position, so sometimes we were running plays way higher than usual and that’s, like, make hard, makes tougher to score. So against teams like that, we just gotta play really hard. We gotta play more in transition. We know they wanna run on a offense to the fast break to score the ball, so we gotta run back and at the same time we gotta run to the offense and try to play without the defense be set.
07:02 Gui, how important is it to have three days off without a game right now, just how tough this part of the schedule is?
07:08 So I think this, like, less games, I don’t know how many games in a row, but we’ve been like playing, a day off, playing, day off, playing, day off. So and then in Minnesota changed. We’re supposed to do that, but then we play a back to back in Minnesota, so would be good for us, like, I’m not gonna lie, I’m tired trying to play the hardest that I can. You got one day in between to recover and that make me think about Steph, Draymond, all these guys that been doing that for so long and that is elite. That make them more — my respect for them be way bigger because it’s hard, man. It’s hard. I don’t know how they do that. Al’s 19, right? 19 seasons? Yeah, it’s crazy.
07:55 Next game is your guys’ last game before the trade deadline too. I mean, you’re still young in this league, but how weird is kind of this time of the year and can you kind of feel that in the locker room too?
08:05 So right now in the locker room, we don’t really think about that. We don’t talk about that because that’s the business. We know how that goes. We just be like day by day, like, we got a game, so we gonna lock in, focus to the next game and then we goes, especially right now that we have a lot of games going on and not even, like, a time to catch a brief between. So we don’t have time to think about it a lot, but we just like go day to day, day to day. And right now it’s normal. Look like nothing’s going on in the locker room.
08:37 What’s your personal mindset with this situation heading into the deadline with less than a week?
08:43 I don’t think they changed nothing. We just — I’m talking to myself, about myself. I’m just gonna go there, play hard, just keep being a good teammate and everybody in the locker room has the same mindset than me right now.
09:08 So going back to Steph, he leaves the game. When you guys find out he’s not coming back, what’s the mindset on the bench and how were you able to rally back into this game without him?
09:22 When you have a guy like Steph on the team and sometimes when the offense is not going great, going the right way, he just catch a ball and step back from half court and hit a three and you don’t have that superpower. So you just gotta figure it out. We have Melt on the step up today and just dribbling the ball around and find a way to score the ball. Draymond fight on defense, all fighting on defense. Everybody was just stepping up to trying to cover a little bit the miss that we have because Steph was out. So I think that’s the spirit. That’s how we just put everything together and we just, like, okay, we don’t have him, but we cannot cry about it right now. He’s trying to win the game, so everybody gonna play a little bit more. If we were playing a hundred percent, now we gotta play 120%.
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10:22 Hey De’Anthony, so when Steph left the game and when you found out, when you guys found out that he was not gonna come back, what was sort of the mindset on the bench and how were you guys able to rally back into the game in that fourth quarter without him?
10:40 DE’ANTHONY MELTON: I mean, once we kind of noticed he wasn’t gonna come back, kinda just told the guys it is time to go. Like, you know what I mean? It’s really time to just step up and just be more aggressive and when stuff like that happens, when your main guy goes down, other guys gotta rally and we’re all pros at the end of the day and we all work on our game, so most important thing is just to go out there and show what you can do, show what you’ve been working on and just do your best against a team like Detroit.
11:07 How did you guys sort of attack their athleticism and size?
11:11 Man, we kept attacking, honestly. We kept attacking. I mean, I think we did a great job. I mean, we shot 52 threes tonight, which is our forte. It’s just we gotta make some more of them. I feel like we missed some wide open ones, some that bounced in and out, but that comes with the game. And I think we started off a little slow, which got them hot and dug ourselves a hole, but we fought back and I think we can hold onto stuff like that, the way we fought in the second half and really through three quarters, honestly,
11:43 Melt, this time of year can be stressful anyway, but you see Jimmy go down, Steph’s not a hundred percent or anything close to a hundred percent and all of a sudden you got people’s names being put out in rumors and speculation about trade possibilities. What are the, how do you get through this kind of period of time? And you’ve been around the league long enough to kind of know how it works, but for you and some of the younger guys especially, how do you cope with this?
12:09 Honestly, you just gotta put your head down and work. Some stuff is just outta your control, you know what I mean? I mean, earlier in my career one of the vets told me, when a superstar or whatever wants to get moved, everybody’s on the block, so nobody’s above the program. So all you can do is just keep working in your game and keep figuring it out. All you need is one team to love you. And so just your biggest thing you can focus on and figure out is your game yourself and your mindset.
12:37 Is it a little bit easier as a veteran as it than it was when you were first two, three years?
12:44 Nah, like, yeah. Like I said, when a superstar, he ready to get ready for whatever, you know what I mean? It’s anybody’s up in the air, so all I can do is take it day by day. That’s all you can do in this league, you know? As you guys know, week by week, something can change. Something can happen all the time, so you gotta just keep working, keep getting ready and when your time is called, you gotta just go.
13:10 You said that when Steph went out, you said, told the guys, everyone’s gonna have to step up for you. What does stepping up look like?
13:18 Just being aggressive. Being aggressive and getting guys in spots to be successful. I think I could do a better job at that. I felt like, in the fourth quarter, I felt a little, just a little frantic about just what was going on, so that’s where you rely on your vets. Talked to Draymond, talked to Al, guys that was out there with me, just ways to calm us down and slow us down. We made such a good run and brought it to two possessions and how can we close games like that out?
13:52 De’Anthony, you guys have had six games now without Jimmy, 2-4. How do you, beyond the record, how do you feel like you’ve played as a team without him and, I mean, it was a pretty abrupt change in the whole picture. How do you feel about the future, sort of seeing what you’ve seen these six games?
14:09 When somebody like Jimmy goes down, you know what I mean? It’s tough to pick up what he was doing, you know what I mean? It’s always, he did so much on the court, not even just putting up points, rebounds, or assist, but just his leadership. He’s a two-way player that gets it done, so having another big body out there and just his IQ for the game not being out there, it’s tough to cope with, but like I said before, just — bless you. We got a lot of high-IQ guys out there and we just gotta use that and we gotta use our aggression and our depth to our advantage, you know what I mean? And just keep going.
14:45 Is part of it also sort of his bravado, I mean–
14:48 What’s that mean?
14:49 He’s — well, just the presence he brings is, like, he makes it feel like you probably, I mean–
14:54 Nah, for sure, for sure. I mean, yeah, like I said, Jimmy, I mean, we all know who Jimmy is and just him being on the court, it’s just a different feel. And not having him there, it’s tough, but that’s why you work on your game every day. That’s why you show up to work and that’s why, you know what I mean? You play this game, for your time to be called, I think, and Jimmy would tell you the same thing, that he wants guys to be aggressive. Even when he was playing, he wants be aggressive. Be aggressive, be a threat, so he’s always telling us that and you just, now he’s not out there. We gotta really do it and get guys involved too at the same time.
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