00:00They were showing some highlight clips of Cleveland-Detroit, Game 5 in the past.
00:05You got any good flashbacks from that?
00:07Well, Cleveland-Detroit?
00:10Yeah.
00:10I just remember LeBron scoring like 24 straight or something like that in the midst of it.
00:18I'll never forget, Detroit called a timeout.
00:23And we went to huddle as a staff and, you know, had great coaches.
00:28And one of them was like, you got to tell him this, you got to tell him that.
00:32And I was like, there's no way in hell I'm going in that huddle to tell him anything right now.
00:37The way he's cooking, I'm just going to let him cook.
00:40I'm not saying anything to him.
00:42And he went out there and he just, he was amazing.
00:45That was the best seat in the house to watch.
00:48Mark, is there any update on what OG Tanner can't do on the program right now?
00:53He practiced today in full.
00:56Yeah.
00:57Is that encouraging?
00:59Yeah, you know, any time anybody's able to do anything like that, it's always encouraging.
01:09You could play in two days, the practice in full.
01:12Did you need to see that today, knowing it could be that soon?
01:16No, you know, at the end of the day, I'm going to wait and let the medical group tell me,
01:21you know, each day what he can do.
01:25We'll see if they tell me something different tomorrow.
01:27But, you know, it's definitely encouraging to see somebody be out, somebody be able to go out there and practice
01:33full practice like OG did.
01:35So he did like scourging and all that stuff?
01:37Yeah, everything we did today, he did.
01:40Mike, how do you process that, you know, talking about looking at Cleveland and you spend much time taking about
01:46looking at you then and then looking at all the seasons of the past to now.
01:52How do you process that sort of passage of time where you were then and where you are now?
01:57I mean, I don't spend a lot of time doing it, you know, everybody just like in your world, you're
02:04probably a little better now than what you were 20 years ago, you know, and so you're looking at it
02:09that way and you're trying to lean on some of the things that you went through that were good for
02:15you and bad for you.
02:16You lean on your experiences and you just try to be better going forward.
02:19But I don't really think much about it.
02:25My suit looked awful.
02:28That's about it.
02:30I was a little embarrassed from the suit standpoint.
02:32But other than that, you know, I just try to be better now than what I was back then.
02:37Mike, when you had Sabonis, he had a clear uptick in assists per game.
02:42Was that your, I guess, expectation to come in to put the ball more in Cat's hands as a facilitator
02:47or did you kind of, I guess, figure that out along the way?
02:50They kind of figured it out along the way.
02:52You know, we do, we do do a lot of stuff that are similar.
02:56I can't remember.
02:57We played, we played somebody, one of my ex-players in Sacramento and somebody showed me a clip where they
03:05said,
03:06you've got the same calls, the same actions, the same this, the same that.
03:10And, you know, like, you know, you have an idea of what you want to do offensively.
03:14You have an idea of what you want to do defensively.
03:17But then it's your job as a coach to try to figure out, does this really fit the group that
03:23you have in front of you?
03:24And, you know, that's why it's always, you know, tough to do things in year one because you, you know,
03:33it takes some time to get used to the group, not just what their strengths are as skilled players,
03:41but their personalities and other things that make them tick.
03:46And so, you know, trying to put a guy like Sabonis at his strength,
03:51trying to put a guy like Cat at his strength is something that, as a head coach,
03:56it's my job to think constantly about as long as it enhances everybody else.
04:03Mike, when you were down 2-1 and we were just talking to Cat about that,
04:06about when you made the changes and what that was like, I mean, you know,
04:10Atlanta kind of, and you've said Atlanta, thank you Atlanta for kind of forcing you guys to become a better
04:15team.
04:15I think you've said that sort of.
04:18Cat said that he came with the idea of running the office through him and that you listened.
04:24Is that how it happened or, I mean, I know you're a very collaborative guy.
04:28Is this something you all talked about, about it, you know, after you fell down too much?
04:33Well, I mean, I take suggestions from everybody and at the end of the day, you know,
04:40it's up to me to make the decision of yay or nay.
04:44And, you know, the tough part about it is sometimes when you have suggestions
04:51and there are a lot of good ones out there, a suggestion is one thing,
04:56but trying to actually put the suggestion into something that can be real for the group
05:01and fit the group, not just, like I said, that one person, that's the tricky part.
05:07Because, you know, I've always been a guy that, you know, if you come to me with a suggestion,
05:13a lot of times, especially as a coach, you've got to have something to back it up.
05:19Some video, some analytics, you know, tell me, tell me how, you know, like in any world.
05:27And so just listening to everybody, whether it's Cat, Jalen, OG, Josh, McHale,
05:36or listening to anybody on my staff is what I do.
05:41And then at the end of the day, like I said, I have to say, okay, this makes sense, let's
05:47do it,
05:47but this is how we're going to do it.
05:50And that's the hard part.
05:53Well, I mean, like I have kids, and they always suggest what's good for them, right?
05:59You really don't eat the biggest piece of the pie, right?
06:02Right.
06:03I mean, so everybody has ideas.
06:05It usually involves them doing something.
06:09I mean, did you listen more this time because you were down too long,
06:13or is this something you had been considering?
06:16No, I always listen.
06:20I think that's probably the way to, or always hear.
06:25But, you know, you can't act upon everything because if you act upon everything,
06:31then you're going to be driving yourself crazy and everybody else crazy.
06:36You know, it was just something where we were struggling to score,
06:43and I just tried to figure out, and I'd been thinking about it for a while,
06:48and it finally came to me at that point.
06:53But, like I said, I wish I would have thought about it earlier,
06:57because if I could have talked about it earlier,
06:59maybe we would have had better rhythm with it,
07:02and we really know the counters and stuff like that.
07:05But, you know, the positive way to look at it is there's plenty of room to grow,
07:11and we may not grow a ton with it during this playoff run,
07:17but it's great to be able to look forward knowing that we have something in our hip pocket
07:22that we can expand upon.
07:24With wanting to get to it earlier,
07:28is there almost also a benefit to getting to it now that teams almost didn't see you in this state?
07:33Like they saw you in the regular season in one way,
07:35and now all of a sudden there's not that much tape on it,
07:37and you're kind of almost unleashing something that nobody has seen yet.
07:42Yeah, I mean, you could look at it that way.
07:44You know, I don't know.
07:48You know, there are things that we're doing now defensively
07:50that we didn't do much of during the regular season.
07:53So you could look at it that way.
07:55I think the playoff time is a whole different season than the regular season,
08:00and, you know, you could do a lot of different things in the playoffs
08:05that you wouldn't do in the regular season because you play so many games
08:09and you don't have enough time to prepare and all that.
08:11So you really lean in on your staples on both sides of the ball to get things done
08:16and hope for the best, whereas the playoff time you can make adjustments
08:19and really implement them and lock in on them and stuff like that.
08:23Kind of on that note, you had earlier in the playoffs said that the Mitch and Catliners
08:28were, I guess, kind of giving you some sort of, like, there were some benefits,
08:31but then there were also some weaknesses in terms of matchups.
08:33It looks like you've gone to that lineup or that too, man, a little bit more in the last few
08:36games.
08:37Or just have they shown you something new that you didn't see
08:39or did you maybe come to a revelation with them on the floor like that?
08:42Yes, I did.
08:42I can say the latter.
08:44I came to a little bit of revelation too with those guys,
08:47and we feel it's a little easier to play with them,
08:53not just defensively but offensively too.
08:56Again, like I said, the playoffs, they make you think, they make you adjust,
09:00and they make you do it in real time because if you don't, your season can end,
09:07you know, and you have some time in between to mess around with things.
09:10So we're in a better place with both areas, but we can still be better.
09:20Even though we talked a lot about, you know, what this job is going to be.
09:27Even though we talked a lot about what this job was coming into it,
09:31the pressure expectations, whatever.
09:33Is it ever hard for you to wrap your head around the fact that, like,
09:36you know, you win 53 games your first year with a team,
09:39a lot of times that's coach of the year kind of thing,
09:41and now it's almost like you're just at the starting line
09:44to really be able to show that you have made this team better?
09:49Uh, I don't really look at that like that.
09:54I just, I mean, you know, like I literally do this to try to compete
10:01to win a championship, and that's what my focus is on
10:07throughout the course of the year, and, you know,
10:10you've said this many times before,
10:12throughout the course of the year, there's going to be noise out there.
10:17When Pop was at his high, people talked about him.
10:21I was with Steve, too, when he was at his high,
10:24people talked about him, and I've said this before,
10:27so, shoot, people can talk about Mike Brown for sure, you know?
10:31But it's my job to ignore the noise, and it's easy for me to do that
10:36because the pressure that I put on myself, that the team puts on itself
10:42to be great or to try to, you know, be the best team in the league
10:49doesn't even match up what everybody else says
10:51throughout the course of the year.
10:53And so trying to get your team to do this, knowing that they're human,
10:59just like you guys are in your jobs, you may take a couple steps backwards,
11:03is something that I focus on more than anything else.
11:06And if you focus on the process, usually the result will take care of itself,
11:14and our group has done a fantastic job of trying to focus on the process
11:19and not get ahead of themselves throughout the course of the year.
11:23But, you know, any job in this league, because of the money that we're paid
11:27and the attention that we have in our positions, there's a lot of pressure.
11:32And so whether it's here or in Utah or Houston or Sacramento,
11:40it's all the same, especially if you're a competitor.
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