Willie Green Practice Interview - Lakers Game
Willie Green Practice Interview: Lakers Game
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00:00 Looking back at the film, what did you really like about just the way y'all executed late in the game, trying to fix some of those problems y'all have been talking about?
00:07 I thought it was better. We made some big shots down the stretch. We got some stops. We still had one turnover, a couple offensive rebounds.
00:20 So there's still improvement in there, but we made enough plays to win the game. And that's what you got to do the last five minutes.
00:28 I'm sure part of it is when you guys don't make shots, we're sitting here asking you what's wrong. How much of that last game was you just made shots and how much of it was you generated the shots you wanted to?
00:41 Making shots always helps. But just to kind of give you a summary, we have to own the fact that we're not as good as we want to be right now in those moments. We've done that.
00:55 Why? Well, offensively, the four factors for us was we're turning the ball over, where our free throw percentage has to be better, the 28th in free throw percentage in clutch games, our three-point attempts, and our offensive rebounds, our ability to go offensive rebounds.
01:13 So we got to tighten the screws on those areas, and that's the improvement for us. Those are the things that we're working on in practice right now to make sure that when we put ourselves in those moments, we try to take a step forward. I thought we did that against Utah.
01:27 The biggest shot there at the end came off of the Zion B.I. pick and roll. How much does that have to be kind of an answer for you guys in some of those situations to say, "Hey, let your two guys get involved and go make a play"?
01:40 That's what all the good teams do. They put the ball in their best two, three players' hands, or they're all in the action, and you keep the game simple, and you get a quality look. You knock them down. Normally, you win those games.
01:54 If you miss them, at least you want to try to give yourself an opportunity to offensive rebound those shots, but you got to get good shots.
01:59 I think Zion, he had that pass to Larry where he dunked it. How good is he when you just get it to him in the middle of the floor and let him do whatever?
02:06 He's fantastic. Really good decision maker. He'll make the right play nine times out of ten, and we trust putting the ball in his hands.
02:14 With the free throws, a lot of times people think of it as something during the offseason that players can work on as far as you have more time to...
02:21 But what can you do during the season? Is it just a matter of them just practicing and just focusing on it?
02:26 It is. It's a matter of getting in the gym and just keep working on it, continuing to gain confidence that in late-game situations, you have a good routine that you feel great about, and step up to the free throw line and knock them down.
02:39 With the way that the game against the Lakers went this last time around, how much do you revisit that game, or are you just focused on how things have been going now?
02:46 That's a trick question, huh? We definitely have moved forward, but we're getting ready to play them again, and we're all reminding each other of what happened.
02:59 We definitely give them credit. They did what they needed to do to win the game. It wasn't a great feeling for us after that game, and we know we have to come in this game and be a lot better.
03:10 You mentioned at the last game, CJ got off to a really good start. He really set the tone and the pace for you guys. Is that something you want to see from maybe one of your big three?
03:20 Is that somebody really is assertive, basically grabs the bulls by the horn, and you guys don't fall behind early?
03:25 For sure. It could be CJ. Sometimes it's B.I. Sometimes it's Z. But one of those three guys, they have to get us off to better starts.
03:34 It was really good to see CJ take ownership of that last game, and he got us going right away.
03:41 Just a big picture question. Last year, you guys were top ten in defense and somewhere in the middle in offense. It's sort of like that again this year.
03:48 You guys were top ten in defense and somewhere in the middle in offense. What is the right balance between those two things for this group, do you feel like, as you keep building towards the postseason?
03:57 We want to maintain a top ten defense, and we want to see if we can get our offense closer to top ten.
04:04 I think last year we finished 20th, 21st, something like that. This year we may be 15th or 16th, somewhere in that area.
04:11 If we can get it closer to 10, closer to 11, 12, in that range, we feel like that may be five, six more wins for us coming down the stretch.
04:22 Going back to the Lakers, when it's a situation where you have to see a team again after knowing it went poorly last time you saw them, is it like a "Hey, we want to take this game seriously. We want to show that that wasn't who we were." Or is it more of a "We have to keep the same game" kind of mentality?
04:37 We want to redeem ourselves, for sure. I can get up here and talk all kinds of what we want to do. We have to get on the floor and we have to do it.
04:48 I believe all of our guys understand that. Tomorrow will be a great test for us. That's the deal for us. I can get up here and talk about it, but that's not going to do anything.
04:58 It's owning it, which we do, work on it, which we do, and then get on the floor and put it all together.
05:05 Related to Ali's question, we've asked a good bit about the starting five this year and how the numbers haven't been where they were last year. What have you focused on to try to improve that?
05:14 The same. I let them know that the guys have not been great together as far as the net rating. I want to equip them with the information. We can all talk about it. What can we all do better to help that group?
05:30 Then see if we can go out and make some adjustments and changes to be better. We're still evaluating.
05:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]