Keegan Murray, Sabonis x Coach Brown React To Kings GM vs Warriors | April 23, 2023

Keegan, how did it feel today over here to finally get going today? I felt like early in that first quarter, you finally found your stride and finally kind of rolls from there. Would you agree? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've just tried to be more aggressive throughout the playoffs and I knew eventually I'd catch my stride on the offense event. So it's just a matter of time and I just came in confident and just tried to figure out what they're doing against me and just try to figure out how I could get open looks. Keegan, you guys came in here up 2-0. Now it's tied going back to sack. Just where are you guys at mentally after, you know, a tough two games? Yeah, I mean, I feel like we fought the last two games. The first game kind of got away from us, but I feel like this game we kept fighting even through the little mistakes we had. And I mean, we had a shot to go in at the end of the game. That's all we could have asked for. It was a great look by HB and I'd have him take that 10 times out of 10. So we know that we just need to defend home court as well as we can. Keegan, it's going back, you know, three games before that. What would you contribute to, you know, your shooting struggles those first three games? Because your confidence level was really high today. I mean, just finding a rhythm. I mean the first two games we had Guy step up and Trey, Davion and Malik and then the last game I got in foul trouble. So it's a matter of just trying to figure out how to get into a rhythm. And I made my first couple and as a shooter, you see those first couple go in and you feel good. So I think, I mean, I just try to watch as much film as I could on myself. I'm just trying to figure out what I needed to do to get some looks off. Hey Keegan, it looked like you guys were able to get back to that DHO action a bit more today. What do you feel like allowed that to happen? I think it's just being aggressive. I feel like they didn't change anything that they normally did. I just, it was just more aggressive coming off of it. And that either led to a mid-ranger at three or a dump off to Doma. So I know that's something that we're really good at throughout this season and we need more of so. Keegan, what happened in the third quarter when they retook control of the game? Yeah, I mean we fought back but I mean they hit a couple shots. We had a couple lapses and that ended up changing the course of the game and they had control the rest of the game since then. So there's something that in the playoffs you can't have happen and we obviously need to clean up some of those mistakes. Keegan, it seemed like you guys came out in game four with just much better energy than what you had in game three. Was there anything set or done in between those games? How do you kind of bottle that when you go back home for game five? I think we just got, I mean used to the environment. Obviously we played here a couple times earlier in the season. It's different when you're playing here in the playoffs. And I feel like obviously they're playing really well on their home court and we played well tonight. So I mean in game five, we just have to defend home court. We have to be the more aggressive team offensively and defensively and that's what we were the first two games. Keegan, did you notice yourself being more aggressive? Is there anything that they did or is it as simple as just seeing the ball go through the net? They didn't change anything. I mean, I feel like they've been playing me the same the first four games and it was just a matter of me and myself being more aggressive and I know my talent on the offensive end. So I was just trying to tap into that and I found that in this game. Keegan, before the game, Coach Brown, I think kind of half jokingly, half seriously said he'd been cussing you out for not taking shots. Yeah. One, can you describe how he handled that with you? And two, do you think the next couple of days he won't be cussing you out? Yeah, I mean, he's been on my tail, I guess, the last couple of days, just me being more aggressive on the offensive end because the last couple of games I've kind of been, I want to say a liability, but not as good as I have been. And he just, you know, he has full confidence in me and he just needed to show me that and tell me that these last couple of days when we had time to practice. So, I mean, he's the coach of the year for a reason and I wouldn't have any other coach. Keegan, the Kings, you guys were 11 for 27 in the first half shooting three-pointers and you only took one three in the third quarter, that one that you made. Was the Warriors doing anything differently or defending you guys differently on that three-point line? They just made more of a point of emphasis to get out to shooters, I think. I feel like they're running a lot more guys off the line in the second half and that led to us more shots to the basket, more contested shots to the basket and mid-range shots. So, I feel like just what they did in the second half kind of changed the game in that aspect. Keegan, two quick ones for you. When HB lets that shot go, what do you think and how did it look from your vantage point? And then after four games, I mean, this is as tough a loss as you guys can have, but what's the mood in the locker room? Did anybody speak up today postgame? Just what's the message after this? Yeah, I mean, when HB shot it, I mean, I always think when he shoots, it's going to go in. So, I was just under the basket. I thought I was going to go in. It looked good, hit the back of the iron and we'll take that any day of the week. And I mean, the guys in our locker room, we've been together this whole season. We're a really tight group and a lot of guys just know that it's the next game. We know this is a tough one, but we know it's just the next game. Keegan, I'm just curious what, back here, you're seeing from De'Aaron, the way he's played in this series, the way he played today, the leadership maybe that he might be showing behind the scenes, what are you seeing from him? Yeah, I think he's just kind of turned it up a notch from the regular season to now and that just shows that he can be a superstar in this league. He made tough baskets, kept us in, and I think his on-ball pressure was really good at times in this game. So, he's playing both sides of the ball, which is huge for us. What a game. If I was a fan, shoot, what a game to watch. I thought our guys came out with a purpose tonight and gave ourselves a chance to win, and that's all you can ask for, come playoff time, but we made some timely mistakes, especially in the fourth quarter. We gapped, and this is where our playoff experience comes into play because you can't rest out there or you can't think that you can play something a certain way and the champions aren't going to make you pay the price, but one time we gapped versus Steph and he hit a three, which was huge. Another time we gapped versus Clay and he hit a three, which is huge, and you might think, ah, it's just one possession. Well, those six points right there, not doing what we're supposed to do, again, that shows our playoff inexperience because you have to take pride in playing a certain way for 48 minutes and it ain't going to be easy, and at the end of the day, if we can't do it, it's going to be tough on us. It was great, obviously, to see the game that we got from Keegan. He was fantastic tonight. I thought Davion was great tonight. Foxy, he was great offensively. He was okay defensively. He was better than what he was in our last game and we're going to continue to need him to bring a lot more to the table, but our guys, like I said, at the end of the day, they fought and we gave ourselves a chance to win. We had a wide open look from the three-point line and you couldn't ask for anything more than that. Mike, could you just walk us through that last 10 seconds? Was there any additional action after the first screen plan? How did that all go down? How did the Warriors defend it? Well, I'm not sure. I think HB just went to set the pick and roll. We just wanted to flatten the defense out and say, hey, we're going to live with Fox shooting the ball. HB decided to go set a pick and roll with Fox to get the switch. Got the switch and we got a wide open three and that was just as much on us as it was anything else because we got a great look from one of our veterans and we just ended up missing the shot. Mike, two questions. First, what happened in your mind in the third quarter that allowed them to sort of retake control of the game? And also, what went through your head when you saw Steph Curry call a timeout that they didn't have? When he called a timeout, I just thought it was a tech, but like nothing else because I knew they didn't have any more timeouts. That's what they do, though, the third quarter. They knew that they had their backs against the wall a little bit and they were going to come out and hit us in the mouth and they did. And one of the things we have to do, we want to play fast. We're going to keep playing fast, but all of our guys are driving into two, sometimes three guys in transition and begging for a call. And we can't continue to do that. And it's a great learning experience for guys to be able to see because we wasted a ton of possessions in transition driving and just throwing up some crazy stuff. Space the floor, stop and spray the ball. And if we miss a wide open three, that is way better than driving and throwing up some crazy stuff because at the end of the day, this is what I keep telling our guys. You're going to have to knock these guys out. You can't rely on the referee because if I'm a referee, the shots that we're taking at the rim in transition, I ain't calling neither because you're begging for a foul. You can't drive to the rim and beg for a foul every single possession and then they run it back at us because they have a numbers advantage. We got to play the right way and when we're playing fast and we didn't do a good job of that, especially in the second half. We had a lot of guys shoot some tough, tough, tough shots, begging for fouls at the rim in transition. I know that you mentioned, Mike, there was some of that rushing in transition. You mentioned after game three, how much more you wanted to see this team be aggressive and meet the moment in this environment. Is the rushing maybe a byproduct of you're there in aggression, but maybe you're not there in terms of just experience of having met what this environment's like late? There's a lot of firsts for us from a lot of our guys. And like I said, whether it's not having the game plan, discipline to do what you need to do in the fourth quarter to win. I told our guys, I say, you know what? Two huge threes that we gap, that not one time in this whole series have we said we were going to gap against these guys. And we did it. And so that probably has to do with you're fatigued and not only that, you're in an environment that you haven't been in before because it was two guys that were in the playoffs for the first time. And you have to have a certain will to continue to try to play the right way, especially if you want to beat the champions on their home floor. We have to do a better job in transition, which we can. We can still play fast and not drive into two bodies or three bodies and throw the ball in the air, begging for a foul. To me, you play fast. If I see two guys in front of me, I'm going to come to a jump stop because I know somebody's open, you know? I'm going to come to a jump stop, just like I did in elementary school and move the ball on to the next guy because somebody is open, you know? And so we don't have to always shoot it just because we're saying we're trying to play fast in transition. We don't have to always shoot at the rim and over bodies that are, because they're doing a great job of just coming and being vertical against us. And so we don't have to always shoot in that situation. Mike, how good was it to see some shots start falling for certain guys today? How big was it in this game? How big will that be going forward? Oh, you know, you always want that. I mean, you know, Keegan, it was great to see Keegan play the way he did. Fox, he shot it well. You know, Malik was pretty good. You know, Trey was good, you know? So it was good to see. And, you know, we're going to have to continue to let that thing fly. And, you know, hopefully, like I said, in transition, when we touch that paint, especially if they're bringing a body over or they got a body that's bigger than us at the rim, we can't go in there begging for a foul. We got to spray the ball and continue to believe that we're going to knock down threes. Coach Brown, the rebounding, wow. De'Aaron had nine of them himself and there was two players, including Keegan, who had seven. Just wanted to get your thoughts on, did they get the message, you know, from the other night as far as gang rebounding? They did. You know, they ended up with eight offensive rebounds. And so we did a better job on the glass and we have to continue to do that throughout the course of this series in order to give ourselves a chance to win. And that was a physical game. You got to keep putting bodies on bodies and go get the ball. And our guys did a better job of that tonight. Mike, for a young team that hasn't gone through this before, what's the mental and emotional challenge facing you guys going back for game five? I mean, again, they're champions. We got to bring it. If we don't bring it, we're going to get beat. There's no tricks. There's no message I can give them. I got to tell them, they know. I'm telling them the truth. We can't have mental breakdowns like we did in the fourth quarter with our game plan. We can't waste possessions by jumping into bodies and begging for fouls. And we got to continue to play at the pace that we're playing, but just make sure we're a little bit smarter in the half court and the full court while keeping these guys off the glass. I mean, it's simple. Hey, they're a good team. They're going to make shots. We're not going to be able to stop Steph Curry from making shots. You just got to make him work as hard as he can to get his looks from the floor. Yeah, Coach, a really back and forth game. I think it's 19 lead changes. Just how do you feel that your team fought in this one to keep it close and still have a chance there at the end? Great, great. Like I said, great fight. We competed, you know, and that's what you can ask for. Now you have to compete the right way in the moment. You know, said a million times, they're not going to give this game to us. Steph Curry is not going to miss a shot if you gap it. Klay Thompson is not going to miss a shot if you gap it. You got to go take it from them, you know? And so our guys competed. You love that. You love the fight. But at the end of the day, if we expect a win, we got to play 48 minutes of good basketball, great basketball against this team the right way. And, you know, even as champions, you know, it's going to be hard if we do that. Mike, back here, way in the back. I counted three different possessions in the fourth quarter, a chance to tie or go ahead that resulted in turnovers. Before the game, you were talking about just lessons that you sometimes just have to go through and experience it in order to figure it out. Is that one of those things, those costly turnovers with a chance to win a playoff game? Oh, yeah, 100%. You know, and, you know, the turnovers and, like I said, our shot selection at the rim and transition had a huge impact on, you know, on the outcome of the game as well as, you know, the defensive breakdowns in the fourth quarter. But, hey, we go through it, we learn from it, which we will do, and we'll be ready for the next game. Mike, from an outsider's perspective, it feels like a hallmark of this Warriors team has always been momentum, that avalanche and the ability to kind of build off it. Philosophically, do you believe in the concept of momentum and the ability to stop it in the middle of a playoff series? These guys are champions. They don't need momentum. They obviously feed off of making shots and Draymond's energy. And so, you know, those things get them going. But they've been around a long time, you know, so I think for those guys, yeah, a lot of things happen for those guys to get them going, but not just momentum. I believe that they have it when they feed off of made shots and defensive stops and Draymond's energy, but, you know, so do a lot of other teams. They just have more experience with it. Mike, I'm here a little late, so I apologize if you already answered this, but in the pregame news conference, you said, I thought somewhat jokingly and somewhat seriously about cussing out Keegan the last couple of days. One, do you think it worked? And two, do you think you won't be cussing him out the next couple of days? You know, look, Keegan's a rookie, and, you know, he's starting, and he's got to understand that he gets no passes. He's got to bring it like everybody else, and if he's not bringing it like everybody else, he's going to hear from me, you know, and, I mean, Keegan's got a chance to be a great player in this league, and I thought he stepped up tonight and showed why he's first-team all-rookie. You know, he's the only rookie, I think, in the lottery that's still playing and playing a significant role for his team, and he, tonight, almost helped us get over the hump, so I got no complaints with the way he played tonight. Joshua, over here, 10 seconds left. You guys get the rebound off the Steph Miss. Don, when you take the time-out, end up getting the good look out of the time-out, but can you take us through the decision-making to call the time-out there? Yeah, you know, I didn't think that, a lot of times, you go in transition because, you know, you don't want them to sub defensive guys on the floor or whatever, and, at the end of the day, ball's going to be in Fox's hands, and so I just want to, I'm not, I wanted to make sure that we were spaced right and aligned right to be able to get a good look, and, you know, again, I felt they were going to keep, basically, the same guys on the floor because they're veterans, and they've won a lot of championships with those guys on the floor, and I thought, at the end of the day, we'd be able to get a good look, and we did. We got a good look. I don't know if we would have gotten a better look in transition, you know, than a wide-open three from one of your veterans. It just didn't go in, but that's, again, that's not where we won or lost the game. I thought there was some other areas where that happened. Coach, for Keegan, it was cursing him out and, you know, encouraging him to still shoot the ball when he's open. I was kind of joking when I said that, but I have cussed him out, but I was joking when I said that. I told him if he didn't shoot the ball, I would cuss him out, but he shot the ball. For Kevin, as he continues to struggle to shoot the ball, is there any cussing him out, or what's kind of that message or dynamic, I guess, that you're telling him as he continues to struggle? Again, it's not about making shots. If Keegan went 0 for 10 tonight, I'd have been okay. I just want him to shoot the ball. I don't want him to hesitate at all, and if he can go make a play, go make a play, and it's the same with Kevin. Kevin's got to shoot the ball, but at the end of the day, he's got to make shots, because right now, we're not getting enough stops to have too many guys on the floor that haven't made shots for us, so we got to figure out a way to get it done. Thank you, guys. Domas, just, I guess, start by asking you just general thoughts and kind of reaction to how this one went. I feel like today we came out definitely more aggressive. On both ends, just the last five minutes of the game, in that fourth quarter, we made offensive and defensive silly mistakes that a team like that's going to make us pay. Domas, Mike just said that this team has to stop begging for foul calls. Do you feel like the officiating has been differently in these last couple of games? How do you adjust to that, and do you feel like you guys are looking for the calls a little bit too much? Yeah, we can't waste time complaining to the refs. You know, we got to get back. They're a fast team just like us, so they're going to go and get it up. So we can't have that one to a second engaging with the ref instead of helping out your teammates. Domas, just mentally and emotionally, where is this team right now after that game, and what's the mindset have to be going into game five? We're good. Obviously, it's not the outcome we wanted, but we're going home, and we got to take care of business there. It's a long series. Yeah, Domas, with them showing you a lot of single coverage, what do you feel like is the balance for you between still making plays for others and kind of getting your own? Yeah, every game, I just got to figure out when to be aggressive, when to shoot, when to run the play all the way, you know, and that's something I'm dealing with, you know, and my teammates have my back. Domas, I'm sure you hear the fans booing you every time you touch the ball. Some guys say they can just block it out, and some guys say it actually kind of motivates them. How have you reacted to that? You know, just block it out, to be honest. You know, we're on the road. It's expected, you know. They got a great fan base, so, you know, just got to play through it. Domas, you know, you ride Keegan sometimes, you know, in the game and, you know, off the court, but you're always teaching him. What were you saying to him and encouraging him, you know, when he was having those struggles? Because tonight he came out firing, and he was hit. Yeah, I was just telling him, just get open. Like, there's no way you can't get open. Like, he was running away and falling in for the top block, you know. Like, just give yourself a chance to get open, make a play. You don't have to shoot it all the time. And I felt like he got the ball early, curled, attacked, you know, got himself feeling good into the game, you know, making assists. So I feel like that always helps, and it definitely helped today. Domas, over here to the side. The officiating, I know you guys, like, got to get back and all that stuff, but it really did look awfully physical down low, and it didn't look like you got any calls at all. Are you surprised just the way that the officiating's been in this one? Definitely not, you know. We knew that was going to happen when we came over here with all the noise and stuff, but we just have to play through. And like we said before, you know, we're not going to get calls, so we can't afford wasting time engaging with the reps. You know, we got to move on to the next play. Domas, I know HB's been in positions like this before, but I'm sure that was a shot he probably really wanted. How do you guys, as teammates, you know, lift him after a game like this, knowing what this game probably would have meant to you guys in the playoffs and to him personally? Yeah, you know, obviously it would have been big if he knocked that down for the team and for him, but, you know, we trust him with that shot every day. You know, that's his spot. You know, it was a good look. We couldn't get a more open look, you know, so we just got to live with it, you know, and we got to prepare for game five. Domas, what are your thoughts on the way De'Aaron is playing and the way he's kind of, you know, shining on this stage, at least offensively? It's nothing, you know, we all expected that. I think you guys asked me before the playoffs, and I said he's going to do what he's doing and even more, you know, and he showed that. He's going out there, offense, defense, you know, doing everything for us, so the more we can help him, the better. Domas, big picture, four games in, just looking at the entire series. This is that part in a seven-game series where each team knows so much more about the other side. Like, confidence-wise, how do you see this matchup, and where's your guys' psyche at heading into game five? I think it's good, you know, I think guys' locker room's good, confidence isn't down, you know. If anything, you know, if we were to knock that shot down or not make mistakes at the end of the game, you know, it would have been a different outcome, but we made these mistakes. They're champions, they're going to make you pay, so now we just got to learn from them and not let them occur again. Thanks, guys.