David Adelman & Mark Daigneault react to Nuggets-Thunder Game 1 & Aaron Gordon’s game winner

David Adelman & Mark Daigneault react to Nuggets-Thunder Game 1 & Aaron Gordon’s game winner

David, I’ll leave it open-ended to you, but that seemed like one of the gutsiest performances I’ve seen from a group. Yeah, and I thought I told him in there just their mentality uh was consistent throughout. I really mean that. Even in the timeouts, you know, you get down 10, you get down 12. uh you know the swings in the game uh I never felt any like anybody wavered and that doesn’t mean you’re going to win the game. Uh but we all know in the NBA playoffs uh these games are so long and you just try to give yourself a chance and we did that and we played out possessions. Uh I thought we were much more patient offensively those last six minutes to get a good shot up each time down. Uh like even Russ’s shot in the corner. I know they they were pre- rotating Nola. Uh you got to take the best shot possible and he took it. Uh, so and I thought our defensive intensity was good in the fourth quarter and Aaron’s going to be a hero again, but I’m also looking at 14 rebounds. I’m looking at 22 points. Uh, I’m looking at ball handling responsibilities, leadership. Uh, he is a Denver Nugget man. Like he he is the the soul of our team. Uh, so cool to see him have two moments that no one will ever forget. And coach, it looked like Nola just refused to let you lose. At the same time, he’s losing his temper. The crowd’s on him. Just kind of can you go over what you saw from him in the 18.4th quarter. Felt like he was everywhere, including maybe in his own head, their head, and just a lot going on in that last quarter with him. Yeah, I mean, I don’t think the crowd affects him ever. Uh, I did think the physicality, uh, they were bringing three and four bodies at him. He had to play through that. uh he had some unbelievable finishes around the basket. And the biggest thing for us was uh he finally saw the three-point shot go in and with their drop coverage the way they played that put them in much longer rotations which puts him in closeout situations where he can actually handle it, spin, score in the paint. And him playing in the middle of the floor as opposed to on the block is hard because now you’re really having to bring bodies, you know, 15 16 feet away from him as opposed to on the block. Uh you know, you have a set defense to rotate uh and take him away. So, uh, you know, Jamal was great early, Nola was great late and, you know, throughout as usual. Uh, but once again, like I said, uh, a lot of guys stepping up and it’s just cool to see Aaron Gordon be the guy that finishes it. You mentioned the mentality being consistent throughout. What do you feel like that’s a product of with this team? They’re just for each other, you know? It’s like uh I just never saw anything where you’re going, "Yeah, we’re kind of losing it." Maybe competitively because that’s what happens in a playoff game. Both teams, you know, they want this so bad. Uh but just the communication on the bench, it wasn’t about blaming somebody. It was about how can we do this better? Um you know what what can we do better in a cross match? What can we do better with Shay? Uh that’s what it was. You know, even down whatever it was, you know, with the last couple minutes to go. So uh when you have that and you’re just communicating about trying to win a game and not all the other crap that can go on, uh you give yourself a chance and uh we did. Uh the ball bounced our way. We got an opportunity and Aaron knocked it down. coach. Oh, how did you guys win a game where you had 20 you had 18 turnovers. They had 23 points off those turnovers. I think you shot I think you only made nine threes all night. How did you win this game? Yeah, I mean we hit the glass. I mean we had I think we yeah 27 second chance points. That’s just all effort on a night where shots are not going in. Uh unfortunately they outscored us in fast break 2721 but 21’s a great number. And then we talked about this the best paint defense maybe I’ve ever seen. And to get 54 in this building in a playoff game, you know what that means is you’re working really hard to try to stay in the game. And when things may not be going your way, you only make 10 threes. The assist totals are low. Uh but we just played hard and played together. And like I said, it doesn’t mean you’re going to win every game that way, but you’re going to give yourself a great chance and we did that and things worked out for us. Yeah. I know it’s kind of pick your poison. So it leaves a lot of open threes. What do you think about the effort on on SGA to at least make it hard for him and then do you just kind of accept some of those? Not that you want to leave wide open threes or I guess how do you maybe limit some of those and still Yeah, I I think when we look at the tape, you know, I give uh you know, Lou Dor and Crew so so much credit. Those shots just because they’re open doesn’t mean they’re easy shots in a game like this. Uh it speaks to the depth of their team. Uh and yes, we can do a better job of helping on Shay Jaylen, but still getting out and getting a decent contest. Uh but sometimes, you know, just like with us, you know, you have to let somebody shoot the ball when you’re playing a first team allNBA player. You know, two allstars that break you down and iso you. Uh so yeah, our effort can get better and that’s a great thing about tape. You can go back, you watch it, I show it to the guys. Uh this is a very honest group. Uh they’re easy to direct in those ways. So winning a game like this is is good obviously, but we can get better. David, a year ago, that would not have been considered a high percentage shot. What are you thinking as the ball finds Aaron there? And and just more broadly, what have you seen go into his jump shot and his three-pointer this? He is so fluid right now. Fluidity with his shot. Uh it’s very different. Uh over the years, it’s gotten slowly gotten better. Uh there’s less of a hitch. There’s almost no hitch now. It’s just a just a very fluid up and down shot. His knees release when his elbow does. You know, all the things they tell you when you’re 10 years old at camp. Uh it looks that way right now. Uh, so it’s nice to put him in the corner where you know he can make a shot and on top of that, you put that man in the corner and he wants to cut on the baseline. We we’ve all saw that in game seven, that lob dunk he caught. Uh, being able to do both is a weapon, especially when we’re playing two-man game with Jamal and Nola. You mentioned the kind of conversation this team has. They’re open and not blaming each other. From a coach’s perspective, how does that help you continue to do your job? Yeah, I mean, I think it lets you focus on schematics. you know, you don’t have to go in and rally the group to stay together in a tough moment. That’s already happening and they’re already having that conversation. You know, keep yourself going. You keep your head up. And I know it sounds, you know, cliche, but it’s not. You know, in these this building, how loud it is. Uh you brought up Nicole, the intensity of the game, people calming him down, him calming other people down. Uh you need that. So, when I step in there, we can just talk about trying to win the game, you know, not trying to balance egos or any of that stuff. So, it goes a long way in high intense moments. Uh just super proud of the guys. Coach, uh how how important was it that you know they never really ran away from you? Their biggest lead was 14. They would get it to 13, you guys immediately go get it to eight. They get it to 13, you guys get it to eight. How important was it that you guys just kept kind of chopping wood there a little bit? So important. And that’s what I was talking about the mentality. you know, would have been really easy for me to come up here and say, "We just played Saturday in a game seven and we have all the excuses in the world and we’re so tired and no, it’s the playoffs. You only get a certain amount of chances out here." And you’re right, every time they got up, I never sensed uh well, you know, we can play in two days. We can still even this thing up 1-1. No, this is our opportunity tonight. Live in the present in these moments now. These games are they’re so hard to win. And when you put yourself in a situation like this, like we did, don’t waste your energy. You know, stay focused on what you’re trying to accomplish. And you’re right, because we did that, we never let go of the rope because it felt like a few times it was close, like they were about to blow this thing out and they’re in and they’re building, which they do a lot. I mean, this is an amazing team that we’re competing against with a great head coach, great players, and depth. Uh, so yeah, man. I just, like I said, the word of the night for me is just mentality. Like, we did it, we stayed with it, and it worked out for us. Thanks, guys. [Music] Obviously, not the way you guys wanted to finish. What you feel in terms of just Denver’s experience there late uh and you guys, uh, you know, trying to make the plays down the stretch? Yeah, credit them. I thought, um, they out executed us down the stretch. Um, I liked a lot of what we did most of the night to have control of the game. Uh, obviously didn’t close it tonight, but I thought we did a lot of good things. I thought we got a lot of feedback in terms of our plan. Didn’t think our execution was as clean as it can be. Um, but what, you know, we’ll learn from it. It’s a series. Mark, obviously I know generally you you try to foul up uh three, but is there any part of you that uh you know wishes that that last sequence went differently and and especially the the possession where you know Jokic is still waiting to to check in? Uh I don’t know exactly what possession you’re talking about on that one, but um yeah, I mean that’s usually our deal is to foul up three uh and to play that game. I thought we executed the fouls pretty well. um got the ball in bounds pretty well. It didn’t go our way tonight, but um it’s worked out well for us in the past. Uh we’ll continue to look at it, maybe learn from it, but I didn’t think that’s why we lost the game. And and with with Jokic, it felt like I think he had at least eight free throws in that that fourth quarter. It felt like, you know, he’s on the fence with the fifth foul and and there are some sequences that maybe swing that game. Like, how difficult is that when you’re trying to, you know, shift center out the game, you know, chat to to Hart and and try to manage that? Um, I mean, I thought a lot of the free throws that hurt us in the fourth were like backcourt fouls that were, you know, just sloppy execution on our part that we can learn from and clean up. Um, you know, we had them in the bonus early in the first, they were in the bonus early in the fourth. That hurt us. Um, so again, there’s stuff we can learn from, but uh, it wasn’t our cleanest game. Uh, it was kind of a coin flip type of game. We we allowed them to get back in it and make it a possession game. Gordon made a shot. credit him. Uh, and we just got to be better. Couple things. One, they came back, they got some quick fouls. They didn’t have to use the clock. And then two, after uh SJA hits his free throws, you fouled immediately instead of letting them maybe use some time to get it past half court uh to use up some time. Any uh I guess why why foul as soon as they inbound the ball on the other end of the court, I guess. Yeah. So, couple things on that. I thought I did think the backourt fouls hurt us. Um, and again, we can learn from that. The fouling up three, that’s on me. You know, I think given the foul and getting the foul executed, uh, is critical. Um, so if you know, there’s something to be learned from that, it’s probably given it too early on my part. Um, but that’s not on the players. They’re executing what I’m telling them to do. Mark, you said, um, you mentioned a few things about how you guys ended up losing this, but you said that the filing situation down the stretch wasn’t why you lost. What would you boil it down to why you lost this one? I mean, just overall execution on both ends of the floor. I thought, um, defensive execution, we, you know, had a lot of possessions that we can clean up and learn from. Uh, the rebounding, um, we can definitely learn from. They had a lot of offensive rebounds tonight. Gave them a lot of second life. Um, and then our execution down the stretch offensively. So, you know, it’s it’s lousy that we lost game one. We’d rather be one up 10 and with stuff to clean up, but that’s not how this works. So, now we got to go get to work and execute better next game. What’s the challenge of, you know, a game like this where you have a pretty comfortable lead, see it, you know, lost away, losing home court advantage. I mean, just those sorts of things on the mental side of things. What’s the challenge of coming back from that? It’s the playoffs, you know, we have to embrace it. We have to embrace the struggle of the playoffs. We have to embrace the adversity of the playoffs. Um, the playoffs are a mountain to climb, so it’s not going to be easy for anybody. Um, you know, we we kind of coasted through the first round. It was challenging in the games, but we had control of the series the whole time. Um, but no one just walks their way through a series uh at this point in the season. So, credit Denver. They were the better team tonight. Uh, we can learn from it. We need to execute better, but it’s a it’s a series first of four. No, obviously had another monster night. What did you think of the execution of the defensive game plan against him and and what’s your feeling come out of this about your team’s ability to to try to contain a guy who’s obviously maybe the best player in the league? Yeah, I mean 42 is loud obviously. Um 10 of those were free throws. Uh he didn’t assist the ball tonight the way that uh he does on average. So um you know the free throws were problematic, especially the bonus ones like the one on the cut, the one in the back court. Those are tough plays where he was walking to the line getting points on those. But um there were plays that we executed well. There were plays that we didn’t. Uh I thought in the first half we did a really good job defensively. We held him to 50 points or around there. Um but you know, we obviously need to be better. We don’t want to give him 42 points. And you’re up 14 with a little bit over four left. I mean, the way things went obviously before you got to the final game from or to the fouls game rather from 14 to where it became a possession game, what did you think went wrong for you guys? Um, I mean, any you give up a lead like that, it’s both ends of the floor, so it’s offensive execution. I can do a better job of getting us organized and getting us quality looks. Um, and then down the other end to Myron’s point, I thought some of the fouls that put them on the line, uh, without using clock obviously helped them get back into it. So, it was both ends. It was everybody, you know, we’re all in it together. Uh, we need to execute better. I need to coach better. They need to execute the plan better and we just need to be a better team in game two. Yeah. Mark, uh, I think Yach got his fifth foul on the on the flagrant with six and a half minutes left. After that, did you change your offense at all trying to go at him more, trying to get a sixth foul? And did that lead to any offensive stagnation? Um, we certainly tried to go at him at times, but you know, you can get teams into like a defensive rhythm if you’re like repeatedly at them every single possession. So, we try to mix the bag a little bit on that. But, um, it was on our mind for sure. I mean, we’re aware of the foul situation, but like I said, you know, we could have been better down the stretch. the the play where we’re talking about Joic not in the game. That came after Shay’s dunk. They clearly thought you they were going to foul and get him right back in. Shay gets free for the dunk. How tough is it to switch a strategy with no stoppage of play where you know you got the dunk, you know, they got to they got no timeouts. They got to just play. That’s what’s tough. You know, it’s it’s tough to switch the strategy. We’ve got the guys locked in on uh following up three as a philosophy. They executed it. Like I said, anything with the followup three stuff in terms of timing that that’s on me. I mean, I’ll take full responsibility for that, but you know, philosophically, that’s also what we do. Did Did you see anything tonight that would indicate that the long layoff may have affected anything about the outcome of the game? I don’t know. It’s hard to say, you know. Um, at the end of the day, I thought, you know, it maybe if we started the game like Rusty, I mean, we’re 0 for 10 from three to start the game and then we were seven for 14 after that. So, like I thought we found our groove there. Um, and I thought our stuff, um, you know, really was down the stretch, you know, so I think it was more of an execution thing. Um, it’s hard to siphon out, you know, what exactly to attribute that to, but the reality is they out executed us tonight. It’s a seven game series. You know, we need to be the better team in game two. First half, Joic seemed like he was operating a lot inside. You guys were very active in the passing lanes and second half it looked like it he was more so outside and then trying to back you guys down. What what did that do for you guys’ defense to to throw you guys off? Yeah, I thought like I said in the first half I thought we did a good job on him and their team. You know, we had um you know, we got stops, we were disruptive. I thought we had them a little bit out of rhythm. We were physical. uh in the second half they scored you know over 35 in both quarters. So um you know I I thought that was a defensive uh issue in the second half. Obviously the free throws had something to do with that but again you know we did a lot of good things. Um you know both ends of the floor it’s never as bad as you think it is when you lose by two. But now we got to get to work and improve our execution. We have to get better as the series goes. Follow. Do you feel like that was more of a point of attack thing for you guys or physicality? With the defense, a little bit of everything. You know, execution of schemes. The rebounding certainly hurt us in the second half. Um the free throws hurt us in the second half. It was it was a mixed bag. We just um we need to be a little bit better. We don’t have to be perfect, but we have to certainly be better. Uh this obviously wasn’t the outcome that you were looking for, but um can you talk about the positive that Caruso brought? Yeah, he was awesome. You know, he’s a he’s a gamer. Um, I thought he gave us a great lift in the first half, obviously. Um, and the shotmaking, you know, he he was the one that kind of got the ball rolling down the hill for us there. Um, did a great job out of halftime. You know, I thought we got control of it there, uh, deciding to start him. And then, you know, he’s just so engaged in the game. You know, he’s he knows the plan. He can guard a lot of different guys. He executes. I thought he played great on offense tonight. He played a great game. Mark, is is the stagnation on offense just really hard to turn around once it once it’s you start having trouble and and really the low percentage shots that that JDub got off and a couple that uh Shay got. Yeah, like the dead ball offense, you know, some of that’s coaching. I got to get us in advantageous positions in those situations. Um and then some of it’s just like when we’re not getting stops. I mean, the game’s all connected. So, um, when we’re not getting stops for taking the ball out of the basket or they’re shooting free throws, we’re coming up against a dead floor every time down the stretch of a game. So, a few more stops help us there. Um, we’ll evaluate every possession, try to get better. Uh, like I said, it was an execution game down the stretch and they out exited us. And Mark, obviously Chad was very involved in that last sequence. He misses the two free throws and then he tries to defend Gordon on the other end. He hits the the game-winning three. What’s sort of your conversation with him after the game and after that sequence? I mean, I’m not going to smother him right now. I think generally um we talk going into the playoffs about um the gaps between the games and the ups and downs of a series uh and the challenges that teams need to overcome to accomplish what they want to accomplish. So, uh we do that proactively for this situation. You know, we know it’s not going to be easy. We know the playoffs are challenging. They take teams to the limit. Uh we’re no exception to that. Uh so hopefully the guys apply that framework to um when they lay on the pillow tonight and then we’ll come back tomorrow and go through the same process that we would go if we won the game by two. Anybody else? Thank you. Yep. Thanks. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Nuggets head coach David Adelman addresses the media following Denver’s 116-115 win over Oklahoma City in Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals. Then, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault reacts to the heartbreaking loss and looks ahead to Game 2.

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