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Warriors Media Day Roundup: Austin Croshere |
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Written by James Venes
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Monday, 01 October 2007 |
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Q: Now that you're away from that situation (Dallas) and you're
here, what are the things you appreciate about Nelson and the way the
team is run?
A: It's just a real open, freestyle way to play basketball. If you
don't know the game well enough, it could seem like a bit of organized
chaos almost, but when you really look at it and see the way guys fill
the lane...there's a lot of teams in the NBA that really preach "We're
gonna be an up-tempo team, we're gonna be in the best shape ever and
we're gonna fast break," but Golden State and Phoenix are the only two
teams that really seem like they're dedicated to it and not just at
points of the game and then pull back. It's the whole game. They
practice running, they practice the fast break. Other teams have the
pieces to do it but they don't. I think it's hard for a lot of coaches
to really just let the team go without calling a lot of set plays,
especially when the other team goes on a 10-2 run or something like
that, I think your instinct is "Hey, all right, we've gotta set plays
and we know it's gonna work."
Q: How do you think playing here is going to change your game?
A: I'm not going to be a primary player on this team or a guy where the
ball's in my hands a lot. The primary guys are someone like Baron Davis
who's gonna penetrate and kick and draw a double team, those types of
things, and just open up the floor for somebody like me. I think on a
team like this where you have so many wing guys who can slash and get
to the basket, and you have guards that can penetrate and demand double
teams, it's gonna leave people like me, bigs that can trail for 3-point
shots...at some point you have to leave somebody open and a lot of
times it ends up being a big on the wings. You saw it last year with Al
and with Matt Barnes, getting a lot of those shots and they're playing
the power forward. I think also playing a smaller lineup a good
majority of the time, it causes a lot of mismatches. It did last year
in the Dallas series. Dallas had to make that decision with Dampier
who'd started all year and they won 65 games. Now what do you do? He's
gonna have to guard Biedrins and put Dirk on Al or Matt Barnes. It's a
difficult match-up. Hopefully I can step in in that same mold and
continue to cause difficult match-ups for the other team.
Q: What's it like coming over to the other side after that series?
A: I didn't give it much thought at first but as it's got closer
obviously it's a pretty unique thing. I never played for Nellie in
Dallas so while I was there I didn't really get what was going on and
now coming here, I have a little better perspective of it. It was that
one team last year playing for Dallas we had a really bad match-up
against. Obviously with the way things went in the playoffs it's gonna
be a big media deal all year long. It's part of the game and I'm
looking forward to being a part of it.
Q: You've been a part of a lot of playoff teams. Was that pretty emotionally charged?
A: The Arena was about as loud as one I've ever been in and I've been
in a lot of series. It's hard to say it was fun to be a part of because
we got blown out several times and lost 4-2 and with all the
expectations going in it was very disappointing. It wasn't as close or
as good as a series as we would've hoped for.
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