De'Aaron Fox addressed the media at San Antonio Spurs practice following the team's Game 1 loss to the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. The point guard emphasized the series is far from over, defended the team's offensive process, discussed the balance with Victor Wembanyama and Dylan Harper, and stressed the need to adjust key details to prevent Jalen Brunson from taking over down the stretch again.
Q. De'Aaron, you've been down in two series so far and also lost home-court advantage against Portland. You were able to respond. How is the team's morale right now and how do you maintain that in the Finals?
DE'AARON FOX: We know this is a long series. Obviously you want to win every game you play at home, but that's not how it happens every day. We're trying to come in, correct the things we need to correct. Obviously we want a different result.
Q. De'Aaron, what's the right balance between you and Dylan controlling things, getting into the paint, creating shots for others, while also making sure Vic gets his touches in the final stretches of games?
DE'AARON FOX: These are things we've been doing all season long. There's a balance to it. But for us, simply when we move the ball and get the defense to rotate, the ball naturally comes back to the guys it's supposed to come back to.
We're not necessarily thinking… obviously, unless Vic says something like "I want the ball" or he gets to his spot and is asking for it, beyond that we have a pretty fluid offense where touching the paint is key. And when we get the defense to move, Vic gets easy shots. He doesn't have to play one-on-one or fight physicality all the time.
Or that, or Dylan gets a layup, or Dev gets a three-pointer. We have such a fluid offense that those things happen and the person the ball is supposed to find, it finds them.
Q. I've been watching you since your Kentucky days, Sacramento, and you always play with composure, with a different kind of serenity. On this team I don't see you with the confidence you used to play with throughout your career. Can you explain to us how difficult this year has been, in these Finals, and how you've managed to turn things around?
DE'AARON FOX: I mean, I have to make shots. That's the only thing I think is sometimes different.
Obviously I'm not shooting as much. But when I came here I knew it was going to be like this.
As a player, you sacrifice things for the good of the team. There are moments when I need to shoot and there are moments when I don't take as many shots, but at the end of the day you have to make the shots you take.
Q. You may have touched on this already, but is there anything you'd change about your game last night beyond making or missing shots?
DE'AARON FOX: No, I don't think so. Obviously, the two turnovers down to those last 10 seconds, or whatever. But no, at the end of the day you have to put the ball in the basket.
Q. De'Aaron, related to the question you answered earlier, that balance of not shooting as much here as before. Do you feel that in a close game, especially when the stakes are this high, it's a bit harder to get into a rhythm in the fourth quarter when you haven't taken as many shots in the first three quarters?
DE'AARON FOX: Not necessarily. There have been moments when that's happened. I think we were down one with two minutes to play and I had a pull-up from the mid-range area in the paint that I just missed.
But no, like I said, you try to be an efficient player. You have to make… something I would consider an easy shot, you have to make it. There's not much more to it than that.
Q. You've known HB [Harrison Barnes] for a long time. Has he ever shown you his championship ring?
DE'AARON FOX: Actually I've never seen HB's championship ring. I saw Shump's [Iman Shumpert]. I think I saw Tristan's [Tristan Thompson]. Have I seen HB's? I might have seen it when we started playing together, but I definitely don't remember it.
I think he said his mom has it, because I think I asked him earlier this year where he kept it, and I'm pretty sure he said his mom has it.
Q. You mentioned earlier touching the paint. How do you assess your team's offensive process yesterday in terms of touching the paint and then opening up the ball to find good shots? Was the process a problem, was it something they were doing defensively that was the problem, or is it simply a make-or-miss league?
DE'AARON FOX: Throughout the game, I thought we were decent. I think toward the end of the game we got a little worse at that and, obviously, they turned up the pressure, kept us a bit out of the paint.
But the process was there, and that's how we built our lead. That's how we got to an 11-point advantage. But we have to try to continue that process over and over. If you're not making shots, you're not making shots, but that shouldn't change the process.
Q. In previous series, after a loss, you'd come out of the film session with quite a bit of confidence. After last night, were you able to watch the film or find something you can adjust or correct?
DE'AARON FOX: Yeah, we were up one with, I think, three minutes to play. We weren't able to score at the end of the game and, obviously, we ended up losing by 10.
Throughout the game we were in it and gave ourselves a chance to win. We had runs. We had bigger leads. We just have to find a way to sustain it. That comes from closing out on the glass, from not giving up second-chance points. The last time we had the lead, we were up one, we gave up an offensive rebound, JB hit a three and then we never had the lead again for the rest of the game.
Those are kind of the nuances of how we have to play if we want to try to win this series.
Q. When you see a player like Brunson get into that kind of rhythm down the stretch, knowing what kind of player he is, do you change things for the next game or do you just stick to the plan and see what you can do better next time?
DE'AARON FOX: Yeah, I think we did a pretty good job throughout the game, but he definitely got into a rhythm toward the end. There were moments where it was like: anybody but Jalen; let somebody else shoot. Not necessarily giving someone else an open look, because it's a team that has a good offense and very good shooters. But you want it to be someone else trying to make a difficult shot.
Try to make it difficult for him. Sometimes you send two defenders at him, sometimes you just contain him when he comes off a pick-and-roll. You just try to find ways to get the ball out of his hands without giving another player a comfortable warm-up shot.