Malik Monk and Coach Brown | Practice Pressers 1.20.24

Malik Monk and Coach Brown | Practice Pressers 1.20.24

Malik you guys are in a little bit of a rut here like what do you got to do to snap this four game win streak and kind of get back on the right side stop um having the little lapses we be having um we just be having too many small details

That we can control that um shouldn’t happen in the um throughout the game and we we see it every day on film so um we just got to lock in look at look oursel in the mirror and stop stop doing it I know you took to social media earlier in

The week when you missed a couple of free throws I know you don’t want to miss free throw and I know that’s you know you want to hit these things but how difficult has this been for you this stretch here where just not difficult man yeah I was

At the NBA at once so miss a free throw it’ll be all right I’m all right uh but yeah it’s of course of course you got to say something when it when it happens um and I’m a competitor too so uh I hate mov more than anything so that that’s

Really why I’m mad um cuz we dropped four um and I felt like one or two of some things I did in those so um but yeah I’m all right be all right um when we play again Monday we got game Monday man looking forward to it so you

Said you say you know some of the some of these things had to you know do with the mental aspect of you you know think maybe overthinking some of uh it’s not overthinking is not thinking enough cuz um we’ll rotate one time on defense then not make a second rotation and now they

Get a wide open three so um it’s just not thinking ahead it feels like you guys have had some good defensive moments and some maybe on the other side there so where are you kind of at with where you guys are uh the same as you just how you just said

It man we um we’d be good for 40 minutes then we’ll be terrible for eight and the eight uh terrible minutes is not as good as the uh the good 40 and we lose the game so uh we’ll figure it out what stands out to you as the differences

Between those like what are you guys doing well when you are playing good defense everybody’s on the stream um we all moving at one um not one person is behind on anything I mean and we all know we can do it um we seen it we see

It every day in film um they show us the good Clips they show us the bad Clips so we know what to do we just got to go out there and do it Mike says he likes seeing adversity from this team so you can learn something from it last year

You guys face diversity this year as well what do you hope to learn from this this stretch trick here uh I I don’t want to learn anything I learned enough uh I just want us to uh win a game yep did you know you leave this team in

Boock yeah I KN I knew that I knew that I I seen it uh a couple games ago like two blocks I’m sorry you make sure they know that yeah they know they know that yeah they definitely know jav um domas he land they know mhm I feel like your

Confidence is always Sky High doesn’t matter what’s it don’t matter it don’t matter um can you can you give that to some of your teammates you feel like you have to lift them at times during a stretch like this yeah that’s why I’m always laughing joking and stuff like

That uh because some people don’t take things how I take it um some people take a lot of things to heart and be down onel so I just try to brighten the mood as much as possible and yeah U try to feed everybody confidence any NFL

Predictions for the weekend at all no I don’t want to jinx my team um so I don’t have anything to say got you I like the Ravens though that’s your team yeah okay you got I do have to ask you U last game the bench was five 15 shooting from the

Field uh I think what 15 16 points um y probably talked about that really concerned about that you know probably not getting that many shots up oh nah one game I’m happens um the flow was off everybody was off so we we’ll get it back Monday thank you guys yeah

No problem appreciate y coach how do you think the bounceback was today in practice especially with the day off yesterday uh it was good I I tell you uh our guys have been engaged uh connected they they’ve done stuff stuff together since the summertime uh all that stuff I’m not

Concerned about obviously uh for me there’s some exas those that we can clean up and and stay engaged with longer than what we’re doing you know we watch film for at length today and the guys could see we showed a couple of clips of them not doing it then we

Showed a couple of clips of them and I told him and look these clips that I’m showing now they can be a Webster’s Dictionary defining how we need to defend this action and so to embrace uh the little things to where it’s monotonous cuz you’re doing it over and

Over and over and over again uh is going to be big for us going forward like you talk about that is there like in games are you seeing a little bit a focus issue here and there with this where they’re not following through on a second or third action or where they’re

Missing free throws and seems like they’re there might be just a little bit of a lack of focus I I don’t know if i j i don’t know if I call a lack of focus uh I don’t know if we fully embraced the details that you have to embrace in

Order to uh stay to be and stay at a high level you know because it we all know no matter what you do no matter what Walk of Life you’re in there are details that are extremely important that if you do them over and over and over

Again it can get kind of kind of boring you know and uh and and it’s hard sometimes to continue to embrace it as long as you need to in order to come out on top and maybe you can say lack of focus or whatever but I would be more uh have to

Say if you embrace it and you really appreciate it it can help you lock in for 48 minutes a little bit better than what we’re doing right now it seems like a lot of times the different some of the big differences in your defense is how you’re executing on the guys you have

Labeled hot or not and the Closeouts varying on that and obviously it’s sort of player dependent but from your experience and how many people you’ve coached how difficult is that to stay locked in with everything happening so fast well it it’s a lot harder today

Than what it was uh two years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago because the offenses were uh completely different and I said this in my press conference the other day and and I again I wish I would have found it to to talk more more

In depth about it but again there there are six or six seven eight teams maybe that are on Pace to historically break what was already a historic offense last year you know we’re around the same area as we were offensively this year and and and I say that because we’ve had a lot

More injuries and we’ve had a lot more stuff that we had to deal with this year than we have in the past but we’re still relatively uh in the same area offensively but we’re 13th I think and you know like last year if we if we were

In season last year we’d be a top five probably for sure top 10 offense but possibly a top five offense based on our numbers this year and we don’t think we’ve played well on that end of the floor so uh I would say it’s it’s it’s more a product of everybody’s offens is

Getting a lot better and being a lot harder to guard because in the milwauke game we didn’t do a good enough job getting their hot Shooters off the line they have a lot of them they played a lot of them uh last night um like TJ it

Was TJ getting off the line even our Closeouts to him at times our angles weren’t good and he’s great player uh especially for everything that he brings to the table physically but you’d rather see you you’d live with a L contest on a three so that means you you close out

Short trying to catch his rightand Drive than anything else uh but he was crafty enough and quick enough to do what he wanted to do whether it was us closing out to him after being in the strength position or him coming off of a ball screen and US guarding him in a

One-on-one situation because it was a small small and we were supposed to switch at that time coach how important it is you know to have a few days off you know until Monday you know compared you know having that road trip coming back in then have to play have to be a

Little refreshing you say yeah you know obviously everybody plays at 82 and everybody has a tough schedule uh but the last stretch and that’s what makes the the game so tough you know you you you you hope you get the Milwaukee but you don’t on the last second shot you

Hope you get Phoenix but you don’t because we weren’t great defensively down the stretch uh nor were we good offensively down the stretch but we we you know I gotta give our guys credit I I mean I can’t sit up here and say I’m I’m pissed because we didn’t do this if

We would have won both the Milwaukee game and the Phoenix game uh you know I I’d have to give them credit for the way that they played but while also pointing out things that that we could have got better in you know and we did enough to

Win both those games we just didn’t close it and then uh same with Indiana I just thought that uh um at the beginning of the game uh we gave them confidence and uh you know they’re in the NBA just like us and anybody else and when a team gets confident or individuals get

Confident at this level uh it’s hard to stop so we we’ve done some some really good things and and I mean I I I sit here and I’m watching the film I’m watching the game and I see it then we kind of go away from it from a little

Bit and then we get back to it and it’s not enough to win the game and so uh that’s what makes it tough having said all that uh yeah you take the rest so you can kind of sit back and take a deep breath you can clean up some things you

Can get a little rest mentally and physically for your you know for for for the next stretch and then you go forward but again everybody kind of goes through it that uh you know you employed the uh the uh the Trap the full court press in

The last two 3 minutes of that Indiana game how how how you feel about that too because it was working to a Perfection I mean you got a couple stops in there and um I think you close the game into about three and stuff how how do you feel

About that type of Defense at that that range well I don’t I this just me personally I don’t think you could do that for an entire game um uh because you’re going to give up some wide open look so you’re going to give up possibly some dunks uh if teams execute first Set

Uh well and and you’re going to Tire your guys out if you try to do it for most of the game uh but again I I got to give our guys credit and you know there’s there’s no moral Victory here but we’re down double digits and our

Guys literally fought until the end of the game and and and they gave us a chance to win by bringing it to a one possession game so uh they did a a tremendous job of executing it uh flying around trying to cover for one another going for steals at the right time uh

There was one time that they called a foul on Kev that uh you I don’t know if it was a foul or not but you know that that was tough cuz they weren’t scoring and it gave them a chance to get two two points really easy uh with a lot of time

Still left but other than that uh I thought our guys did a fantastic job of fighting and trying to give ourselves a chance uh uh at the end of the game dar’s efficiency has dropped a little bit this month obviously he was scoring

30 a n um how’s he doing is he is he a little deed up right now how do you think he’s holding up at this point in the season I I think think it’s it’s fine I mean this is you know a long season 41

Games uh we’re at the 41 game Mark um he he probably is dinged up but uh everybody is you know and and I know I’ve played him more minutes than I’ve wanted to and I got to be conscious of that uh same with domas I probably

Played him more minutes than I’ve W to as well and and maybe Malik too in terms of the length or the stretch of the minutes uh but uh Fox isn’t going through I don’t think anything that uh other guys are around the league are going through right now at this point this

Season yeah Mike um the last couple of games have been close losses Y and you had a lot of lopsided losses before that is there a lot more as a coach to look at and to talk about when you have these tight losses and you can point to

Specific things where you can clean up as opposed to some of the the bigger losses where you know sometimes you just on the table Yeah 100% that you know first of all J you know nobody no I don’t want to lose nobody wants to lose

Okay but with the loss with some of the losses that we’ve had and we may have them again I don’t know but uh you know you don’t like to see that uh because it can be really disheartening and more importantly what I think is extremely important is it can impact your belief

Uh because again everybody’s in there NBA and a lot of times uh and so that everybody’s a really good player and or a really good team they have the potential at least and a lot of times what it boils down to is who has the strongest belief when you have two good

Teams and when you have a little L do you H when you hit a little L during the course of the game are you that confident do you believe that strongly in yourself and your group that hey if they just made their run now we’re going to make our run and and

So tight ball games allow that belief to really stay there if you continue getting beat over and over again by 2025 again it’s not the end of the world but it’s harder to hold on to the belief that you are a good team or that you

Have a chance to be an elite team and that’s what bothers me more than anything else in those types of losses you you still teach and you still try to work to get better in the blowouts but at the end of the day you worry more about the belief part than anything else

And that can have an huge impact on uh where you guys finish at uh in the season uh then if it’s a tight ball game and you’re teaching and you end up losing situations like that Mike any NFL predictions for tonight I’m head down there now baby I wish it wasn’t raining

But it’s okay uh let’s go ners let’s go ners thanks Mike right thank you thank you

Malik Monk and Coach Brown peak to the media after practice in the Golden 1 Center Practice Facility in Sacramento, CA on January 20, 2024.
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