“There Can’t Be A Slippage In A Quarter Or A Minute.” | Mike Conley Shootaround Sound | 05.28.25

“There Can’t Be A Slippage In A Quarter Or A Minute.” | Mike Conley Shootaround Sound | 05.28.25

have you guys have you had a chance to just kind of as a team reset the last two days for one team to um I think we’re extremely focused on you know the opportunity we have right now The the challenge that we have in front of us Um you know we feel like we’re a team that we play our best basketball against them We can beat them and uh we have to find that tonight no matter what it is And uh I think our mindset’s right We’re in a good place Uh we’ll be ready to fight tonight Mike what does it look like early for you to kind of like just make sure you’re off to a good start and just setting the tone that you guys want to uh I think it starts with uh us being able to to you know be physical finish possessions like we need to I think we gave up way too many offensive rebounds to them last game Um I think that’ll really kind of set the tone on our mindset Um winning on the road is always hard but if you you know bring your defense you bring your mentality uh you have a chance to win any of those games There seem to be a lot of those rebounds that landed in that middle area Like how do you just get better at just attacking that and making sure you’re getting your hands on those and they’re not just tipping it out or whatever Keep Yeah Um I think first is you got to try to find bodies first I think we’re we’re you know trying to track the ball too much Um and the way people you know nowadays you shoot a lot of lot of deep shots They’re going to bounce off in a bunch of crazy different ways and and it’s hard to track So if you can find a body first uh you know try to get yourself in between that you know hopefully that that ball even if it does bounce to the middle somewhere we’ve got our bodies in the right right position to kind of get our hands on it Mike what’s the balance to stay making the right basketball plays making sure that you’re set a tone yeah Um you know there there’s obviously a balance especially from from Ant and from Julius guys like that where you want them to make the right decisions the right plays 100% of the time but um we know there comes a time where you have to find yourself find your offense you know lead our team in in another way And that might be being aggressive taking a few shots you know whatever it may be get downhill try to get to the free throw line a bunch of different areas you can um you know put your imprint on the game And I think that uh for the most part you know our guys have done a good job of that But um tonight we’re going to definitely need our guys you know our best guys will be our best guys and everybody else has to do their job around them Michael with that in mind just what as the vet on the team have you said anything to to a and to Julius I don’t know picking them up what just what what have you said to them to encourage them get their get their minds right yeah Yeah Um first off we just encourage them you know letting them know that we wouldn’t be in this position without them too Those two are are the guys who’ve led us this far and we need them to be who they are um every night and there can’t be a slippage in a quarter or a minute especially in a you know elimination games Uh we need those guys to be themselves and and and have fun and be free you know not be so stressed and and press to make the right decision every time Sometimes you’re going to mess up It’s okay Um but at the same time just just keep your you know animation keep your you know just your joy for for what you’re you know trying to do and the challenge that’s ahead of us Could you tell if they received that yeah Yeah we went out to eat last night Uh we went out to eat last night and had a good time Just um we watched pace with Nick’s game you know just as a team So u it was good to just be around each other in in a different format from you know worrying about ourselves as much and um you know kind of just relax a little bit I’m definitely fatiguing It’s the playoffs every other day There’s a tough day in between How much more of this is more mental and physical cuz a lot of it seems like a confrontation Yeah Uh it’s a balance Honestly it’s a balance You got to be mentally tough enough to handle it Uh mentally tough enough to handle you know one game you don’t play well next game you do or two games you don’t play well How you going to change um adjustments And but the great part is both teams all teams are going through it You know you the team that that handles it the best Uh the team that stays together the most and competes at the highest level at this time of year is going to find a way to to get through Well you said you said uh Mike and Julie is finding themselves playing like themselves Did you feel like a wasn’t playing like themselves or was that a product of the way that they were kind of loaded up no I thought Ant um I thought Ant played well I honestly did I think he just uh you know people are so used to him having big big numbers Um but when you look at it you know you had Dante and Nquille like all these other guys who who are benefiting from the way they’re playing Ant was driving He was trying to find stuff in the paint They collapsed He makes the right reads Like that stuff uh is important for our unit for important for our team And you know you look back and had we offensive rebound better had we not turned it over we probably win those that game You know we’re not talking about uh whether or not Ant was playing well or not So uh obviously we want him to try to get 30 or 40 you know lead us lead us that way But if the game dictates something else in certain parts of the game he has to do what necessary for our team to win Um and we know at the end of games he’s going to he’s going to try to be our closer and do what he can to win the game You spoke about uh that desperation and I’m curious over your career when you get to an elimination game it feels like perhaps you could do too much as well What have you learned about not going overboard with that desperation and in a situation like this yeah Um you know I’ve been a part of them where you you know you change lineups you change defenses completely you just throw different random things out there and it doesn’t work out too well I’ve been a part of stuff where we didn’t change a thing and it didn’t work out So you just have to find a balance of you know coming in with a new adjustment one or two but keep it simple uh try to follow a game plan that’s worked for us some that you know similar to game three where we were playing in a certain way um and winning all the little the little parts of the game the 50-50 balls the offensive rebounds stuff like that turnovers were low if we can do that just in general we feel like we have a chance to win so I think that’s what we’re trying to keep our mindset on

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