home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS


June 12, 2019


Marc Gasol


Oakland, California - Practice Day

Q. Monday night was very emotional for both teams. So how is the mindset right now?
MARC GASOL: Well, you go back, you keep it objective as much as possible. Within knowing that it's such an emotional time, you try to keep it as objective as possible, try to control the things you can control, the things that you must do better than did you in Game 5 and go and execute.

Q. Nothing seems different from like basically the way you guys have been thinking the last couple of days, everybody's all focused?
MARC GASOL: It gets a little harder, because you know more of the other team, they have know more of you, they're going to do probably more of the things that work for them. Not so much that things that didn't work. It's just kind of the same thing, just Game 6 now.

Q. What is it about this team that makes them so good in bounce back games?
MARC GASOL: Even within the game I thought we did a great job of bouncing back. Again, at the end of the game we just didn't execute defensively or offensively as good as we should to close it out. But we were down quite a few points, I don't know, 14 points. And it's not a bounce back game. I think within the game, I thought that we did a really good job of staying in the moment, just like we did in the previous games.

Q. But in bounce back, I mean like after a loss. So like after two losses in the Milwaukee series, you guys come home and win. You've done that a number of times throughout this playoff run. But what is it about you guys that makes you good in that situation?
MARC GASOL: I couldn't really tell what you it is. I think it's just our nature as players. Because as a team we haven't been together that long, so obviously our instincts as players, I think kind of that's what it promotes and I don't know. I think you have a better sense of it than me.

Q. Do you find your roles and responsibilities changing within games and game to game? And is it difficult to adapt all the time?
MARC GASOL: Just take it as it comes. And you can't expect the game to be played the same way, obviously, not from game to game, but within the game, they're going to make adjustments, you're going to make adjustments, they're going to take something away, open up something else. It's just a matter of how many runs can you withstand and how many runs can you get. And try to make obviously their runs a little shorter and avoid mistakes, especially the ones that we can control and make our runs a little longer.

Q. Given your role sometimes you're playing against Draymond, sometimes Boogie, sometimes on the perimeter, sometimes with the ball. Is it fun, is it challenging?
MARC GASOL: It's a lot of -- I think any challenge is fun because it makes you better. Any challenge you face it's always fun. It gives you a chance to improve. So I think that, I don't think we understand the meaning of fun the same way, maybe. It's fun a couple -- after a couple beers and it's fun at those things, but it's fun too.

Q. But in the game, is it difficult then or how would you describe it?
MARC GASOL: Well, you have to do a lot of reflecting and understanding and trying not to analyze too much. Sometimes you can get caught over-analyzing and going too far ahead and just keep it as simple as possible. Not just because you trigger somebody else's movement, and when you analyze you tend to take a little second.

Q. You're playing under kind of the highest basketball pressure or close to it of your career and a lot of these guys are. These are really difficult, big-time games. How can a player, like in the biggest moments where you've got to take and make shots to win or lose a game, how do you kind of as a player make those, like what in a player do you need to have to perform in that biggest moment in that very specific skill?
MARC GASOL: Understand and visualize what's going to happen and what could happen. And try to create space, have a good rhythm, the same thing that you practice over and over again. Spacing, got to be correctly or better for us, and it's just a matter of being on the same page.

Q. Is it easy to ignore that pressure or play within that pressure?
MARC GASOL: If you're in rhythm I think it's a lot easier at the end of games to take a shot. When you're in rhythm it doesn't matter if it's two minutes left or two seconds left, if you're in rhythm, you're in rhythm. When it changes and you have to do certain things to keep yourself in rhythm and just always your mindset always has to be you are in rhythm. You might not be but always think positive and like you are in rhythm.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP sports

tech 129
About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297