What more could you ask from a group?

You know what?

More commitment.

Sacrifice?

Um, just everything in the last 82 days that our team has gone through the history that we've made the adversity that we've faced and never ran from embraced it owned it a time.

So it's from a pride perspective.

Couldn't be more proud.

You know, my message to our guys is remember this feeling?

You know, last year, Game seven against Portland used that as motivation.

I think all great teams and champions have to go through the pains of losing and nothing.

Nothing is handed to you in this business, and we're making steps.

Were moving in the right direction with a great group of guys.

I wouldn't I wouldn't wanna be with any other group.

I love our team.

I really do.

Eso proud.

Came up a little short.

Obviously give a lot of credit.

You don't have to give the Lakers a ton of credit.

You know Frank Vogel in their staff do an amazing job all their players and you know, my relationship with LeBron.

Um he took over like great players took over takeover in games like this.

So you tip your cap, you give them credit, and we use this as motivation to come back even better and not be satisfied with making the Western Conference finals.

Our goal still remains to win a championship.

X will go to Katie Windy Katie boy.

Yeah, Coach.

With all that being said, what encourages you most about what this team did and where this team can go from here?

What encourages me most is how young we are.

You know, what encourages me most is the fact that we have drafted and built this team from from or e inorganic method.

Um, we have young players that have grown up and continue to amaze on would also encourages me.

Katie is when you can stare, defeat and elimination six straight games on, defined away to advance the only team in history to ever do that.

And you know this matchup, you know, they beat us for one.

They're they're they're really good team during the NBA Finals for a reason.

Um, but I think it's serious was a hell of a lot closer than the 41 it would indicate.

Um, no silver lining, but I'm encouraged by the growth, maturity and development of all of our players and our young guys.

They're only going to get better, which is really exciting.

If you're a Denver Nugget fan.

Next, we're gonna Michael Rosenberg, Michael.

Go ahead, burn someone working in that process.

Respect?

Yeah, it's, um it is incredible.

And when you just step back and look and marvel at what LeBron is doing at this stage of his career, how he continues to find ways to improve and get better and take whatever team he's on to.

New heights.

Um, you know, that defines his greatness 10th finals appearance.

And I know everybody wants to get caught up in the whole argument, the greatest of all time.

That is a unwinnable debate.

Um, LeBron is a great player, and he's one of the greatest to ever do it, and his resume speaks for itself.

And, like I mentioned earlier in a Game five closed out game when the game was hanging in the balance, who took over the best player on the floor?

And that's what you've come to expect from him.

Next we go to Mallika Andrews.

Malika.

Go ahead, White.

Karen.

Well, Wait.

Turkey here.

Sleep?

Yes.

You know, do your job mentality.

I think when we got word that lead was going to resume.

There is a lot of excitement before we came down here.

Definitely some question march.

Um, I just ran into Kiki and Byron's parole Mark Tatum and gave them a shout out because this, uh, they pulled it off.

This has been a great experiments in bubble basketball, if you will, um, and where they're concerned for the uncertainties at the beginning.

Sure, I think everybody had that because it was the unknown.

This has never been done before, But once you got into your routine, it was just like being a basketball camp.

Your in your dorm, you wake up, you do your job.

And for us it was a little different because we didn't have everybody with us getting healthy, getting guys down here.

But I think our guys handle this bubble atmosphere and environment as well as you could ask anybody to.

And I think that's one of the reasons we were able to survive and advance as far as we did because we didn't fight it.

We embraced it, way accepted it and uh, you know, and we just went along with it.

Mhm the way.

Wait.

Yeah, Obviously I've worn this shirt as you mentioned Malika quite a bit.

Um, you know, I wear this for Elijah McLain's parents.

Shiny McLean, Luwane Mosley, all of this family, all of his loved ones.

Um, And as you mentioned, just because we're done here now we go back to our respective market in our cities.

Uh, that's where the fight has to continue and and getting involved as much as possible.

You know, uh, I think about this case, and the reason I wear this shirt is because no disrespect to the countless others who have been killed, But this is in our backyard.

And I feel a responsibility to bring light to it because I don't think Elijah McClane's name is mentioned enough.

I don't think enough people are talking about it on the end of the day.

What do we want?

The shirt says it all.

We want justice.

Here was a 23 year old man walking back from the store with headphones on with an iced tea in his bag, and somebody called the cops because he was acting suspicious.

being black isn't suspicious.

So all these types of things that are just we've had enough.

Everybody's had enough.

So if I could wear a shirt, if I could speak on it to help, I think about a little bit of change.

That's the least I could do next.

We're gonna Jeff still get Jeff.

Go ahead, Michael.

I always feel a little awkward.

No, no, it's all good.

Handle purchase for Matt.

Okay.

What were the subtle differences?

You know, that allows working well, right?

Me?

Yeah, the I mean, the subtleties were a lot of the things that we felt were going to be the key themes.

If you're coming into the syriza transition defense, the rebounding, the paint and then you have a guy you know else has brought up before LeBron, who has been here and done that and going to his 10th finals, Um, this is the second time are franchises ever made it to the Western Conference finals?

Then we're playing against that guy who this is routine for him and you know, so we take some solace in that, and my challenge to our group is that we'll be back and we advanced and we improved upon last year.

And our goal is now to get the NBA Finals and won a championship.

Ultimately, ast faras this off season and what we can do, You know, it's I think, that will come in a few weeks.

Reflect on this.

Take a deep dive into who we are.

What, what what what areas do we think we maybe have to improve upon?

And we'll address those on those air open and honest conversations that I continually have with Tim Colleague with, uh, with Josh and Stan Kronke to find out how we can become an even better team to not be satisfied with making the journey that we just finished.

And, uh, the challenge continues way Still have a ways to go.

It's time for one more Will end with Harrison Wind Harrison, Go ahead.

Hey, Coach.

First off, Thanks for being so gracious with your time this year.

Much appreciated you.

Secondly, going on this playoff run going to the Western Conference finals with these guys as young as they are, even on the heels of having 14 playoff games last year?

What's that experience gonna do for this young group?

Yeah, I think it's, You know, uh, I'm just basing it off of what happened from last year in this season.

I think one of the greatest challenges coming into this year was the expectations that everybody had for us.

You know, going into this season after what we showed in the playoffs, there were high expectations on a very young team.

And how do you handle those expectations?

I think next season after we've shown what we can do, uh, the expectations will probably even higher.

So how do you handle those expectations?

How do you meet the pressure of that?

We're also finding ways to remember when we had our best success.

When we played our best basketball, we played free.

We played for each other.

We played with joy.

I mean, we were down 31 and I think a big reason we came back twice from being in a 31 deficit was because we still found a way to have joy and fun on the court.

We didn't play pressure.

We didn't play like our lives were dependent upon it.

If we did that, we wouldn't have advanced against Utah or the Clippers.

So, um you know It's gonna be an interesting offseason.

Like I said, we'll talk is a staff in front office and ownership.

But I love the core group that we have.

I think we have something special brewing, and I think most importantly, I think people around this country around the world who are watching the playoffs, uh, this group of guys, you'd be hard pressed to find a better story coming out of this bubble.

A bunch of young kids faced elimination, looked at in the face and just kept on surviving in advancing.

And I'm just really blessed and proud to be a small part of it.

Thank you, Coach.

Appreciate.

Appreciate it.

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