Keegan Murray, De’Aaron Fox & Coach Brown | Postgame Pressers 2.26.24

Keegan Murray, De’Aaron Fox & Coach Brown | Postgame Pressers 2.26.24

I know you guys uh had a rough third quarter but in the fourth just kind of what flipped the switch for you guys and is there ever a time where you guys look at each other and just like hey why do we put ourselves in this position and

Have to climb our way out of it uh I mean it’s not why we put ourselves in this position it’s just um just try and get better um I mean we’re down we got down what 18 um so we’re just trying to trying to help each other out um in

Different ways um and I feel like a lot of our guys helped that at the end of the third quarter so I feel like the first and and third quarters is where we got beat defensively kind of along those lines coming out that third quarter obviously you see it ramped up in the

Fourth was there just a heightened sense of urgency when you guys go down 20 uh I mean yeah we’re we’re competitive um we know that we can’t dig ourselves in that hole we’ve done a lot this year um so it’s just the competitive nature of all

Of us and we just have to do that for four quarters Keegan they put in Kevin Love in an odd spot and alongside bam just how much of an impact did that have on you guys there in the third quarter uh I mean not only Kevin Love but I feel

Like a lot of our guys or a lot of their guys um did really well in postup situations um but he was he was a big Catalyst in that I think now both times this year this Miami Zone’s giving you guys some troubles um what are you

Seeing that kind of makes that bog day on your offense uh it’s a little different kind of Zone um they take away the three um take away different passing Lanes um and then Bam’s kind of on an island um in an isolation in the middle

So um they take a lot of things that we’re good at they’ve been effective with that this year K you guys have a lot of good wins this year and then you know kind of a bunch of losses now where you have these short-handed teams what what do you make of that like

Tendency uh I mean every team in this league is good uh you go up and down and they every team’s Got Talented guys so um um their guys stepped up highe bam a lot of their guys stepped up in different ways so that’s happened a lot of different occasions when we played

Teams that have been been down kind of their top guys uh so to say but uh we just had to come and compete every night like we did last night kind of building off that a little bit Keegan is it a consistent issue you think with the team is it consistently something you’re

Noticing with the team that’s doing wrong or is it other teams just presenting different issues or this keeps happening because of what other teams are doing not so much what you guys are doing um for us it’s just bringing the fight every night that’s something that we have total control

Over um efforts that is something you have complete control over each night and teams like I mean their Zone hurt us a lot um even in the first game it hurt us a lot so um teams like like the heat switched up a lot of what they do and

But I mean effort is something you can control every single night Keegan you were Garden Haw has a lot this evening just as a rookie what is he doing that makes him so effective especially on one-on ones uh come I mean I remember playing him in summer league and he’s I

Feel like he’s added a lot to his game um since then so whatever they’re doing down there in Miami has helped him a lot and you can tell so um he’s at a postup game uh he’s got more physical um been able to score on on all three levels so

Um feel like he’s going to be a really good player yeah dear and I think now both matchups against Miami it looks like their zone is giving you guys some issues um what do you see in there that’s kind of allowed that to bog down your offense

I mean just I mean their activity getting in past the lanes and uh being physical um kind of turned us over I mean I don’t think we’ve seen as much Zone from any team in the league uh as we have out of this team and um I mean I

Think they they did a great job in it and just being able to disrupt our offense uh Darren as many good wins as you guys have this year you have you know a number of losses to to kind of short-handed teams that come in here and

Do this what what do you make of that that tendency and and how do you guys address that I mean we have to play better uh we have to be able to get stops I mean obviously there were times where we got it down to four 68 and then

They make a shot at the end of the shot clock but I mean we have to be better it’s not like they didn’t come here and play well dear it’s been a roller coaster ride all season long but after yesterday’s win and then tonight’s game

Do you just kind of Chuck this one up to just a hardfought loss on the second night of a back toback or is there something more I mean I can’t like I said I they came in here and they played well both offensively and defensively um obviously we fought back got into the

Game but um I mean we have to be better uh we can’t turn the ball over I can’t turn the ball over like I did but like I said it’s not like they didn’t come in here and make some tough shots and I do think they beat us to 50-50 balls uh a

Majority of the 50-50 balls so um some of the effort we we need to be better but um I mean they played better than us tonight building off of what you just said what flipped in that fourth quarter third quarter wasn’t great but fourth you guys just turned up the intensity I

Mean we changed up we we went Zone a little we pressed up a little more um we were able to get deflections get out and run get some easy baskets and obviously Keegan and Kevin are making big shots um like I said we can talk about how effort

This effort that I mean Keegan and Kevin makes three threes in a row now we’re like oh my God they’re playing well no nothing not much has changed they made three threes in a row and now the game looks a lot different so I said we we

Have to be better and uh other aspects of the game but they played better than us Fox kind of building off of that a little bit too you mentioned the shot making shots stop start falling but on the defensive end it just looked like you guys were a little more disruptive

Also in that four fourth quarter I’m just trying to figure out like how do you look at the balance of those really good defensive possessions in a short period of Time Versus the rest of the game where it seems sometimes few and far between I mean I think the fourth

Quarter we we we played a lot of Zone um but we were being disrupted while being in a Zone we weren’t sitting back being in a Zone we uh picked up three quarter Court uh we were able to get our hands on the ball uh we were just more active while we

Were in the zone tonight and like I said we have to be better throughout the course of the game maybe we do that maybe we try to go zone or try to press a little earlier but uh that fourth quarter um there’s man principles in our

Zone defense but we were able to get deflections get out and run layups threes and transition um we definitely had a lot more activity in the zone in that fourth quarter a lot might be obviously talked about in terms of how short-handed they were tonight but the

Way they play just their depth I mean I’m sure you guys don’t really notice them being that short-handed I mean just how keep speak to just the continuity and how fluid that team is yeah I mean regardless of and it’s like a running joke like regardless of who Miami puts

Out there it looks like that’s a team that played in the finals or played together for a while so um I mean they have guys who do their job they have guys who come out regardless of how long they’ve been with the team they play

Hard I mean d that thing signed with the team last week and he’s out there in big minutes so um just their continuity they play hard um they understand what they need to do um like I said they played zone for probably 80% of this game and their continuity in that defense just

Being able to be disruptive uh get their hand on the ball I think was was a lot um they made it difficult for us and then I mean they shot 52% and 36 um obviously uh Hami hawass had a big game uh bam was big for him down the

Stretch uh they made plays um they made plays down the stretch Caleb Martin I mean we saw did in the finals he had it he came out and he hit us in the mouth first and then they kind of follow suit and they uh closed out the third

Quarter I believe on a 28- 10 run and a lot of that was haime HZ so you expand on you know him you know being a rookie and coming in and playing at that moment yeah I mean he’s he’s been a matchup problem for a lot of people um obviously

Being a guy that stayed in college for some years uh people aren’t expecting him to do this or do that but um he just has game that works anywhere he goes and plays regardless of what team he plays for um he knows how to use his body he

Gets you gets you going one way spin move if you’re not 68 like you’re probably not blocking his shot so um he just he just he’s not super Shifty but he just understands how to play he understands how to use his body and he made big shots he made some touch shots

For him and um I mean his one-on-one game I think is a lot better than I feel like people give him credit for and that was a big part of uh of what happened today him and Bam uh what they did one1 really hurt us uh

You got to give M he a lot of credit uh especially the young kid uh haime I I thought uh I thought he was really good tonight um didn’t matter who we put him on he just kind of lined us up and kind of went at us and got it done going 12

For 17 from the field um I thought uh two guys off the bench uh Haywood High Smith was fantastic he really hurt us on the offensive glass he had three big offensive rebounds that uh uh resulted in points for them and then Kevin Love

Came in and shot the ball well but um uh he also got it done uh on the post and in from the free throw line so great win for for those guys uh they played the right way and uh I thought you know again for us uh we didn’t score a ton

But we shot 40% 41% from the three uh 53% from the two um our our offense is going to be there uh it’s it’s basically it’s kind of the same story for us we got better from the three-point line in the in the first half they they were at 44 or something

Like that percent from the three-point line they shot the ball really well from the three-point line uh they finished the game at 37% uh but 50 50 uh 52% from the field is is not good enough um they’ve won seven of nine uh they went to Milwaukee without they’re basically the same guys

And beat Milwaukee by 20 um so for us uh I just didn’t think um uh defensively until until the last quarter uh we didn’t get it done uh one of the things that uh we probably could I probably could have done to help them more was probably go to Zone we played

Zone in the in the fourth quarter um um and you know our guys were aggressive in the zone uh they did a good job talking and then they went to man at the right time so uh maybe I could have helped them more by doing that um but I just

Thought that uh um they outworked us um throughout most of the game and um ended up getting a win Mike we hear a lot about heat culture and guys just seeming to to always step up and and play well and big moments for spola and and just that

Group over there from the king’s perspective how do you build that culture in your own organization is it possible to replicate what the Heat have built and what does it take I guess to to get there in your mind uh no you can’t you can’t replicate it you I mean

Because you got to have your own culture in my opinion it’s hard to uh do the same thing that somebody else is doing uh but the the reality of it is from top to bottom um they believe in toughness and they believe in playing hard and playing the right way

Um they’re they’re not looking at offensive numbers they’re looking at defensive numbers how you compete and how tough you are and then they’re trying to develop those type of players and put them on the floor and and you know um you know it started with Pat Pat’s still there and you got spoler

There too and that’s a really good combination especially when you have guys like Dwayne Wade that are Main Stays that come through there Udonis hasl them because once you get it from within and you have the Buy in from within uh from your main guys um the sky

Is a limit because everybody else that comes along and joins that team they’re going to have to follow their lead if they don’t they’re out they don’t care what they shoot from the three they don’t care how many points they score it’s all about playing the right way playing with toughness

Supporting your teammates and um that’s what that in my opinion from the outside looking in that’s what that that’s built on like I know domas ended up with a triple double but obviously he got kind of disrupted there by their defense a bit I’m wondering how much that might

Have taken some things out of sync for you guys to see him kind of disrupted the way he was you know Bam’s really good player we we told domas uh we told our whole team that hey it’s going to be tough because the sprays are going to be

There you you know um as soon as uh you know you catch the ball in the pocket or if you catch the ball in the post the heater they’re coming and they’re coming they’re swiping down at the ball they’re really aggressive with their double teams and their digs and you got to

Think spray the ball and both foxy and domas and and you know I thought that they both uh struggled a little bit with that I think domas had four turnovers and Foxy had seven turnovers and a lot of it was when they were in the paint

And they got collapsed on and we didn’t get the ball out in a timely manner and so uh it was going to be tough for domas to score down there because of how quickly they come and how active they are when they come uh it’s just one of

Those one of those types of games where uh you just got to continue both those guys got to continue trus in their teammates spray the ball and uh try not to turn it over what what do you think you guys could have done better defensively with some of those hawkz and adab bio

Isolations it’s t you know you don’t want to the one thing you don’t want to do is you don’t want to double going into a game double trying to double three four guys and um you know we we we felt on a mismatch with Kevin Love We felt on a

Mismatch with bam atab bio hey let’s come and let’s come aggressively on the double team and uh we didn’t we weren’t great at it uh because we weren’t we didn’t go aggressively on the double teams we just kind of kind of kind of floated and those guys were able to pass

Out of the double teams make sharp passes out of the double teams on time on target passes and which resulted in threes open threes and so uh our our aggressiveness when we did double uh could have been better we could have been more decisive so that the next guy

Knows when to go I thought uh you know last night our aggressiveness on our double teams versus kawhai they were really decisive and we were gone we were to his body getting on his back heel and now he’s got to make a pass under duress I don’t think neither one of those two

Kevin Love nor when they had mismatches Kevin Love nor uh bam had to make a pass out of duress tonight versus a double team um and and then I we could have doubled him maybe you know uh you know he’s a really good young player and

He earned every bucket he got but uh you know I was hoping that we could just okay hey if you’re oneone and it’s a nio play sit down and guard him and make him take a tough shot and he just hit shot after shot after shot and so that’s why

We end up going to Zone we went to Zone early in the fourth with about 9 10 minutes left and and it it worked obviously to a certain degree and we started spraying the ball uh um like we talked to him about and Keegan hit some

Shots off of that those sprays uh but you know it’s hard when you think you have to double you know haime Kevin bam going into the game and then you know guy like high Smith gets 15 Caleb Martin gets uh 16 you know Wright gets 13 they played a pretty comfortable game

And and I just don’t believe in doubling three four guys and running around the whole game if you can help it Mike I know uh every player is in the NBA they’re good enough to be here right but some of these games it’s a trend it

Looks like with you know when the star player isn’t playing for the opposing team it looks like you guys maybe let your guard down or just don’t play to the same intensity do you notice that Trend or is there a specific way you see how these these games are going for you

Guys when when the star player isn’t playing for the other team uh no I mean Paul George didn’t play last night you know uh and we’ve played against other teams where their top one or two guys didn’t play and and we’ve won games um the reality of it is you know one of

The thing I I obviously got to go back and take a look I know in game one there were six or seven 50/50 balls and we didn’t come up with one and uh you know I’m not sure if it was that bad tonight I thought we got on the ground

For couple um but there were some opportunities for us to box out uh we didn’t hit somebody you know there were some opportunities early on uh to where I felt we could have contested better we didn’t quite get the shooters and so to me more than anything else um that’s

Where that’s where the trend is you know and I’ve been saying it the last few days uh I thought last night we did a great job defending the three tonight we kind of let our guard down a little bit and uh and let you know guys that that

Weren’t hot initially uh get going and um and it hurt us um but uh I I don’t feel like it’s a trend uh that every time we play a team that in their number one or number two or number three guys out that that we

Lose and like I said to start this thing you got to you got to give Miami a lot of credit they’ve like they’ve won I think seven of nine or something like that and they haven’t had quote unquote all of their guys in all of those games and and um so

We give them a lot of credit for coming in here and and taking this win

Keegan Murray, De’Aaron Fox & Coach Brown speak to the media following a loss to the Miami Heat on Feb. 26, 2024 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, CA.

0:00 – 3:21 Keegan Murray
3:21 – 8:28 De’Aaron Fox
8:28 – 18:43 Coach Brown

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